Demon Seals
by Yami Faerie
Summary: "Demon Blood" 'verse, s4 AU. Dean is rescued from Hell, but Sam is missing and the angels refuse to help find him. Sam has been working with Ruby, and must make a choice between his powers and the will of angels in his quest to find and stop Lilith once and or all. Castiel is a good soldier, but a new soul in Heaven leads to him questioning his beliefs and everything he knows.
1. One: Return

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter One: Return**

 **Welcome to the next story in the "Demon Blood" 'verse! April ended up being a pretty busy month for me, but I made some good progress in getting this story going. Updates will probably be a little on the slow side as I work to make sure that everything lines up the way I want it to.**

 **I'm so excited to finally share this story with you guys! This was the resulting story that came into my head with the initial sparkling idea of "what if Sam learned about the demon blood earlier than on the show and was kidnapped by Azazel?" Everything I've written has been leading up to this story. This is where everything changes. There are still a few things from season 4, but most of it is going to be all new. Strap yourselves in, guys. This is going to be an intense ride.**

 **Note for new readers: you have stumbled onto a massive AU with multiple stories. The correct order to read them in is listed in my profile. Enjoy!**

* * *

"Help!" His voice was incredibly hoarse, and his throat dry like he hadn't swallowed in months. "Help!" He coughed, almost dropping the zippo lighter in his hand as he began to understand two things.

First of all, he wasn't in Hell anymore. How, he didn't know, but it seemed he was back in his body again. And secondly, he realized he was in a simple wooden coffin. Which meant he had been buried. What on earth had Sam been thinking?

Not that it mattered at the moment, because Dean Winchester was clearly stuck six feet under, and chances were he was going to have to climb out on his own. Taking a deep breath, he smashed at the lid of the coffin with his fist until it broke and dirt began to seep through, putting out the lighter. Now for the hard part, he thought to himself.

It was pretty much agony.

After what felt like forever, he felt his hands break though the surface above him. Finally!

Then something grabbed his hands and pulled him from the dirt and into the sunlight.

Dean coughed and gasped for breath when his face emerged, and the something released him once he was completely free of the earth. He collapsed face-down and focused on the feel of the grass beneath him and the sound of his breathing.

This was real, he knew that with absolute certainty. But how?

"Dean Winchester."

Dean started, remembering that something had pulled him free and turned on his back, blinking in the harsh sunlight at the figure standing over him. It was a man with dark hair, wearing a suit and trenchcoat.

"Who —?" Dean broke off and started coughing again.

"You are in need of water," the man said, suddenly holding out a bottle.

Dean was confused, but water was water, so he reached out and took the bottle from the man's hand, cracking it open and carefully guzzling it down. "Who are you?" he asked once he had finished off the bottle.

"My name is Castiel," the man said. "I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."

Dean blinked. What the fuck? "You brought me back from Hell," he said, just to clarify. Castiel nodded. "Mind telling me _how_ you managed to pull that off? There ain't a damn thing that can bring a soul back from Hell and stick it back in its body."

"I am an angel of the Lord," Castiel said as though it explained everything.

Dean blinked and looked up again. An angel. Seriously?

"You're kidding," Dean said, forcing himself to stand. "Angels don't exist. No one's ever seen one."

"That is because we have been mostly observing for the last two thousand years," said Castiel like that explained everything.

"Oh," Dean said, raising his eyebrows. "Right. So, why'd you pull me out?"

"God has work for you."

And _that_ was about as insane as this entire situation. "What day is it?" he asked instead, trying to focus on things that might actually make sense.

"It is March 19, 2009," Castiel said, and Dean frowned.

"It's only been about a year? Seriously?"

"Time passes differently down in Hell, Dean," Castiel said, "but it was more than long enough."

"Right," Dean said again. "So, you're telling me that God and angels actually exist, and you think I'm some chosen warrior or something?"

"That is correct."

Dean frowned. This couldn't be happening. "I still can't wrap my mind around angels. I mean, aren't you guys supposed to have wings or something? You look more like a tax accountant."

"This?" Castiel glanced down at his body. "This… is just a vessel."

"Wait," Dean said. "Are you actually possessing some poor dude like a demon?"

"We don't take vessels unwillingly," Castiel answered, voice taking on a hard edge. "This man is very devout. He actually prayed for this."

Dean was starting to wonder if he was losing it. "Where am I?"

"A few miles outside of Pontiac, Illinois."

"Oh." That was when Dean took a good look at his surroundings and realized that several trees had been blown over in a large circle, his grave the exact center. It made him think of a nuclear bombsite. "Did you do this?"

"Yes," Castiel answered.

The whole thing was completely insane. Angels. Dean just couldn't process it at all. "So uh…" he trailed off, unsure of what to say next. "What now?" he finally settled for.

"Now I take you wherever you need to go," Castiel said.

"Great," Dean said, "I wanna go find my brother."

"I can't do that, Dean."

Dean frowned. "Why the hell not?"

"It wouldn't be safe for you."

"Meaning?"

Castiel looked away for a moment. "We've been watching your brother for some time, now," he said, "and I'm afraid he's headed down a very dark path." He met Dean's eyes and Dean was bothered by the intensely calm darkness of them, even though those eyes were a very clear blue. "He is not the same man you left behind."

"A dark path? Not the same? What're you—?" And then it hit him. That revelation had come so very long ago, but it had driven his actions for so long until the events of Cold Oak.

 _He and Sam were each other's strength and weakness. Sam would do anything to protect Dean, and he didn't doubt for a second that this could easily include starting up the demon blood addiction willingly if it'd save his life, somehow. But so long as Dean was around, Sam would stay away from the blood because he didn't want to be addicted or let Dean down. He would learn to control his abilities so he didn't hurt anyone, Dean in particular, even though he was clearly scared of himself, of the things he could do. All Dean had to do was keep them both alive and together._

"I failed," he whispered. "Sam needed me so much more than I needed him, and Dad knew it." He turned away from Castiel and passed a hand through his hair, which was still cut how he liked it. Then he looked down at himself, realized he was completely healed, and had to wonder: how had an angel fixed his body up so perfectly?

Sam had broken his promise, his mind hissed at him, bringing him back on track with current events. How long had he lasted before giving in? "Do you know when he started exorcizing demons with his mind?" he asked.

"He started in October," Castiel said. "Do you still remember what it cost for him to do that?"

Dean turned back in disbelief. "I let my brother drink demon blood to save a barn full of people he didn't even _know_. I treated him like a weapon for the greater good after Azazel fucking _kidnapped_ him and got him addicted in the first place! I witnessed two withdrawals and watched my brother fight to stay clean _for me_ , so lemme tell you what _I_ know more than anything." He stepped closer to Castiel, who didn't even attempt to back away. "Whatever choices Sam has made, and whatever path he's on, I know _exactly_ how to get him back. You take me to him right now or I will walk away and find him myself."

"Dean," Castiel said in a quiet voice, "I _cannot_ allow you anywhere near your brother."

"Why not?" Dean asked angrily.

"Those are my orders," said Castiel. "You can go see anyone you want, go anywhere you want, except for Sam."

"Then take me to Bobby's and I'll call him from there," Dean said.

"Sam hasn't been in contact with Mr. Singer since you died."

Dean's mouth fell open. "What? Why? What's he been doing?"

"We… haven't been able to track Sam's exact whereabouts for some time now," Castiel admitted. "I believe the demon he consorts with created hex bags that cloak his location from both angels and demons."

"Whoa, hang on," Dean said, lifting his hands. "Sam's been doing what with a who?"

"The demon named Ruby," Castiel answered. "They have been working together these last few months."

Dean took a step back. "He's with Ruby? That bitch…" He turned away again, ignoring his growling stomach as he tried to think. How could Dean have ever trusted her to look after his brother? How had things gotten so messed up? Why the fuck had Sam broken his promise?

"I watched Sam for monts after you died," Castiel suddenly said. "It seemed clear to me that you both share a deep bond with each other."

Dean looked back at the angel. "He's all I got left," he said simply.

Castiel nodded solemnly. "That is why I volunteered for the mission to rescue you from Hell."

Dean frowned slightly, wondering where Castiel was going with all this.

"I have never spent time with humans," Castiel said after a moment, "and I never paid much attention to your kind, but there are many things that have happened in recent days that have caused me to rethink my position in the current war you must take part in." _That_ was when Dean noticed a slight change in the angel's tone, though he stiffened slightly when Castiel stepped close to him. "I _cannot_ take you to your brother," he said softly, "but there are other things going on that myself and the other angels have to attend to, so it isn't possible to keep a close eye on you at all times."

Dean looked into Castiel's eyes and immediately understood what the angel was trying to say. "Thanks," he said, shoulders slumping slightly. "Now, would you take me to Bobby's?"

Castiel nodded, raised a hand and placed two fingers to Dean's forehead. Suddenly, the angel was gone and Dean was standing in the middle of the salvage yard outside Bobby's home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Given how long he'd been gone, Dean knew better than to expect a warm welcome, but he had to find Sam, and Bobby was pretty much his only chance of accomplishing that.

 _"_ _Dean, you have to save your brother from what's coming, and if — if you can't, you might have to kill him."_ John's words echoed in his mind for the first time in years, but now Dean was finally beginning to understand just how much his dad had figured out, how much he had never told him or Sam about what lay ahead. If angels existed, then what was to say that Lucifer himself didn't?


	2. Two: When the Dust Settled

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Two: When the Dust Settled**

 **So, do you remember my OFC who died at the end of "Demon Game", the empath Danielle Palmer? Well, she's not out of the picture, not by a long shot. Don't remember who she is? Then you've got some reading to do to catch up, starting with "Demon Virus".**

 **This story will be told from three points of view: Dean, Sam, and Castiel. We've already seen where Dean's story picks up at almost a year after the events of "Demon's Year". Sam's story starts right where "Demon's Year" left off. As for Castiel, we're going back in time to right after the end of "Demon Game". Feel free to reread that story if needed to give you an idea of what's going on there.**

 **I have never been so ambitious in my storytelling before. These three POV's will eventually meet and then continue from the same point in time, but I don't know how long it will take to get there. We've got a lot of ground to cover, and it's gonna be one helluva ride. I hope you enjoy this next chapter!**

* * *

It was a nightmare come true. Long after his tears had dried, Sam sat on the floor of the house, staring at his brother's bloody, torn-up corpse. Ruby's empty host lay nearby, blue eyes as vacant as Dean's, but Sam ignored that body. It had been an empty shell that the demon had occupied for too long. Ruby was gone. Dean was gone.

Dean was dead.

Dean was in Hell.

 _Dean_.

Sam heard approaching footsteps, but he had zero motivation to check and see who or what was approaching. A demon could walk in with every intention of killing him, and he knew he would put up no fight whatsoever.

"Sam?" It was Bobby. Sam heard him take in a sharp breath and knew he was seeing his brother's body. There were more footsteps, and Sam assumed that it was Ellen and Jo. The dismayed sobs and gasps he heard a moment later confirmed it. Everyone could see that — that —

— that Sam had failed his brother.

"Ruby?" Jo asked hesitantly.

"Gone," Sam rasped.

"And Lilith?"

"Left," Sam muttered. "She couldn't kill me, so she left."

"Couldn't kill you?" Bobby said. "I don't understand."

Sam shrugged. "She tried, she got scared, she left. That's it."

No one said anything for a minute or so.

"We need to get out of here," Ellen finally spoke up.

Sam didn't want to move, but he knew she was right. "Can I help you carry Dean's body?" Bobby asked.

Sam nodded woodenly and rose. He spotted the bloodied demon-killing knife a few feet away and picked it up with his injured hand, tucking it into his jacket pocket before turning to his brother's body. Jo and Ellen laid out some blankets in the backseat of the Impala, and the men carefully placed the body on top.

"We need to leave the city," Bobby said, "find someplace safe to burn Dean's body."

"No," Sam said at once.

"Sam —"

"I'm not doing it," Sam snapped, meeting the older man's eyes for the first time. "I'm going to find a way to bring him back. I won't burn his body. He's —" He took a steadying breath. "He's gonna need his body intact."

"Are you sure?" Ellen asked after a few seconds.

Sam nodded silently and headed for the driver's seat."Can I bandage your hand?" Bobby asked quietly.

Sam would rather let it be, but nodded after a moment and allowed the other Hunter to care for the cut he'd sustained when picking up the knife in the bedroom of that little girl.

Bobby said he knew a place in Illinois where they could get a simple wooden casket for Dean. "It's about 4 hours away in Pontiac," he explained. Sam agreed to make the drive, and the somber group headed out in the darkness, Sam doing his best to ignore the dead and unconscious bodies in the cul-de-sac of humans who had been abandoned by their demon hosts.

Dean was dead. That was all that mattered.

Bobby drove the Impala while Ellen and Jo followed behind in the truck. There was no music playing on the radio. No words spoken by the living men in the car.

 _Dean's dead. I failed._

When they reached Pontiac, Bobby sent the women to get the casket while he and Sam went in search of a place to clean up Dean's body for burial. They settled on a motel on the outskirts of the town that was mostly vacant. Bobby made the reservation while Sam parked out back.

 _Dean is dead._

Sam had never seen Bobby act with such tenderness as he did in helping Sam prepare his brother for burial. Sam took a few minutes to look for a place to bury his brother and identified a field in the midst of a small forest a few miles outside of Pontiac. Bobby called his wife and gave them coordinates to meet at.

The sun was just peeking above the horizon when they reached their destination. Jo, Ellen, and Bobby all pitched in to dig Dean's grave while Sam fashioned a simple wooden cross to use as the grave marker. They positioned the casket before moving Dean's body one again. Sam left a zippo in Dean's right hand, but claimed his necklace. He needed to keep something of his brother's near his person, so he carefully placed the cord over his head and situated the bronze amulet against his chest.

At last, it was time to lower the casket. Sam took a deep breath, raised his hand, and slowly raised the simple coffin just enough to move it over the grave. Then he carefully lowered it with care and precision he had never shown before. He grabbed a handful of dirt, and stood over the grave.

"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I thought I could keep you from…" A sob forced its way up his throat. "I'm gonna find a way to get you back," he promised. "I don't care what it takes." He dropped the handful of dirt and turned to grab a shovel.

After the grave had been filled back in, the four stood around the grave in the face of the rising sun.

"What do we do now?" Jo finally asked.

Sam had been thinking long and hard. _Our family is cursed,_ he thought bitterly. _I can't keep risking the lives of anyone else over our troubles._ He swallowed hard, resolved himself in his choice, and then spoke, his words hard, pure, and powerful.

"Jo, Bobby, Ellen," he began, "the three of you are going to leave this place, go back home, and leave me as well as Dean's grave alone. You will not go looking for me. You will not call me. Any hints about my whereabouts will be ignored."

There was no way for the three to resist the mind control. They gave Sam heartbroken looks, but did as instructed. Soon, Sam was left alone to gaze at his brother's final ( _it's not final you're not gone forever_ ) resting place in the light of the rising sun.

"I'm going to bring you back," he whispered. "I swear it."

* * *

The first time Castiel saw the soul his superiors would eventually label as "troublesome" was the day it arrived in Heaven.

Castiel hadn't seen souls at this point in their existence in several millenia. As a member of the holy garrison, Castiel's job was to guard and defend, not to sort and organize. There was a division of angels whose job was to oversee the passage of the souls into Heaven and place them in their appropriate spot in within the limitless boundaries of paradise. Castiel was usually busy attending to his duties; he had only been down to the soul's entryway a handful of times as a young cherub in the early days of Heaven after Lucifer's fall, but not since then.

"I have a new assignment for you," Sariah had told him earlier. "There is a soul in the entryway that did the work of Heaven at great personal cost. My superiors have requested that one of my garrison retrieve this soul and deliver it to a shared Heaven with its chosen life partner. I would ask that you be the one to carry out this task."

"Of course, Sariah," Castiel had answered at once. "I live to serve Heaven and our Father."

"Then go," Sariah had commanded. "The soul is currently in the care of Matholomew."

And so Castiel had taken flight, soaring to the entryway to the angel in question. "Hello, Matholomew," he greeted upon his arrival.

"Hello, Castiel," Matholomew returned with good cheer. "It is good to see you, brother."

"And you," Castiel said, tilting his head to try and see his new charge. "Is this the soul that I am to carry to its new home?"

"Indeed," Matholomew said, stepping aside to give Castiel his first true glimpse. "I would advice handling it with caution," he told the other angel. "It is behaving in a rather… curious manner."

"How so?" Castiel questioned, gazing at the small ball of light. It seemed to shake ever so slightly.

"Souls are in a state of… stasis, I suppose you could say, when they first arrive here," Matholomew explained. "They are unaware of their surroundings until they have been placed in their new home within paradise. But this soul…" He gestured to it. "It trembles at my touch," he finally said. "It is as though it is aware of where it is and what is happening to it, but this should not be possible."

"That is very odd, indeed," Castiel said. "I shall endeavor to handle it with care, then. I thank you for this knowledge, Matholomew."

"You are most welcome, brother," the other angel replied. Castiel reached forward carefully and moved the soul into the palm of his hand. He felt it quiver, felt it try to move itself, and he moved his hand closer to his torso so as to keep it more secure before he took flight again.

The paradise of his charge's life partner was currently rolling hills within a valley surrounded by mountains, filled with endless terrain to use with a strange contraption Castiel believed was called a for-wheel-or. He landed on a relatively flat part of the landscape and gently deposited his charge into the lush grass of that particular spot. It shined brightly, and then it broadened, twisted, _formed_ itself into the physical representation of the person it had been before its death.

The soul was female with long, dark hair and pale skin. Her eyes were already open, revealing a mixture of sky, storm, and earth. She stared blankly at her surroundings for several seconds before she gasped and sat up.

"Who's there?" she called out loudly, looking around. "I know you're here, I can _feel_ your presence."

This was a rather strange thing to say, since the female had a life partner nearby.

Stranger still, the female claimed to _feel_ a presence.

She rose, eyes narrowed and lips pressed together firmly. Then she gasped, eyes widening and mouth falling open. "Oh my God," she said in a light voice, "I'm dead?" Castiel watched as she pushed her hands against her abdomen, pulled up her shirt, felt the bare skin of her torso. "I must be dead," she said. "So then this is Heaven?" She looked around. "But… who's presence did I feel?"

She frowned, looking around, and then she stopped moving very abruptly. "Another angel?" she said softly, looking around, looking _up_ , looking right where Castiel was observing. How was this possible?

"Haven't I already _done_ enough?" the female spoke in a very loud voice this time. "I already did _everything_ you fucks told me to do! You're supposed to put me in Heaven with Jared for my _service_ to you pompous, controlling _bastards_ —"

"Danielle?" called out another voice, and Castiel realized he had become rather tense. It was a strange sensation he wasn't sure he understood or knew what to do with, but he cast it aside as a male came running through the tall grass.

The female turned around very quickly to face the male. "Jared," she whispered, and then she was off, running across the rolling landscape, the two souls racing toward each other and colliding in a mixture of arms grabbing and bodies rolling in the grass. Castiel quickly surmised that this must be an intimate greeting and departed, believing his duty to this particular soul had been carried out.

When he reported what had happened to Sariah, however, he sensed that this might not be the case. "That is most odd, the way this particular soul behaved," Sariah told Castiel. "I will report it to my superiors at once. Thank you for your service, Castiel."

Castiel watched the other angel fly away, and it suddenly occurred to him that this might not be the last he would see of this Danielle and her Jared. The realization was… unsettling.


	3. Three: Search

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Three: Search**

 **The past few days have been so hectic! I'm so glad to be able to finally sit down and share the next chapter of this story with you. We know from season 4 that Dean's first order of business after going to Bobby's was tracking down Sam. And successfully, at that. Will it go the same this time?**

* * *

It had taken being cut with a silver knife, drinking holy water, and a test of his memory before Bobby believed that it was really Dean standing before him. Jo and Ellen were currently out hunting a Djinn and probably wouldn't be back until the end of the week. Dean insisted upon not telling them he was alive because he didn't want them to abandon a Hunt just for him.

"You know I could find someone else to take over," Bobby said, but Dean held firm.

"Got any food?" he asked instead. Bobby rolled his eyes but went to the kitchen to throw together something to eat. "Hey, I've been dead for almost a year, I'm fucking _starvin'_ , Bobby!"

"Okay, okay, I hear ya," Bobby said with good-natured grousing in his voice. Dean grinned and settled down at the kitchen table.

"Have you been able to track Sam down at all?" he asked Bobby as he took a plate of sandwiches the older man offered him, biting into one with relish.

"I can't," Bobby said, sitting down and snagging a sandwich for himself, "he used his Jedi powers and told me, Ellen an' Jo not to look for him. Ever."

Dean's heart clenched at Bobby's words.

"D'you really think he's with Ruby?" Bobby asked hesitantly.

"You're gonna tell me that angels lie?" Dean said with raised eyebrows.

"No one's seen one for millennia," Bobby shot back. "What's to say they aren't as manipulative as demons?"

Dean shrugged and chugged down some water. "I think it's more than possible that's he's with her," he said after a few moments. "Sam really isn't the type to trust anymore without fucking huge reasons, but we both know that Ruby _did_ save our lives a few times before —" He broke off. _Ruby saved our lives a few times before I died and went to Hell._ "Plus, I asked her to stick by him and try to keep him from doing exactly what he did to you three."

"Sam don't wanna be found," Bobby finally said after some time had passed and the sandwiches were almost gone. "He said he was gonna find a way to bring you back after we… after we buried the coffin, and then he made us leave." Dean grimaced and Bobby sighed. "From the look in his eyes before he left, I think he didn't have much hope of actually finding a way to bring you back. He just didn't seem to know what else to do."

Dean nodded his understanding. "You been drinking much?" he asked quietly.

Bobby shrugged. "Everyone already calls me the town drunk, but I'm not the type to get drunk every night until I pass out, especially with Ellen around." He smiled sadly at Dean. "She's been the strong one, holding me up when I just wanted to fall, keeping Jo in line when she just wanted to rage about Sam sending us away like he did, just… making us take life one day at a time until it got a little easier."

Dean shoved away from the kitchen table and started pacing, running his scraped-up hands through his hair as he mulled over everything Bobby had told him. "I'm gonna find him," he said with steely determination.

"I believe you," Bobby said, "but I can't help."

Dean considered for a moment. "Maybe that angel has the juice to negate Sam's commands," he said thoughtfully.

"How're you gonna get in touch with an angel?" Bobby asked.

Dean took a deep breath. "I'm gonna make like Sam," he answered, "and try praying for once in my life. But right now," he added, "I'm gonna find my brother."

By the time Bobby had finished cleaning the kitchen, Dean had figured out which phone company Sam was using, got the GPS signal turned on, and used the correct website to track down Sam's location. He was currently in Logan, Utah, about a twelve-hour drive. "Hopefully he stays there," he said to Bobby as he stood up.

"How'd you know to do all that?" Bobby asked with a frown, holding out a clean t-shirt and jacket for Dean to change into.

People always seemed to wonder how Dean was able to find Sam anywhere. "Are you kidding me?" he asked with raised eyebrows as he snagged the clothing and quickly changed. "What _don't_ I know about that kid?"

Bobby couldn't bring himself to go on the mission to find Sam, so Dean got down on his knees and said a prayer. "Uh, Castiel," he began, fidgeting awkwardly as Bobby tried to suppress a chuckle at the strangeness of the situation, "Bobby was uh, _compelled_ by Sam to not go looking for him in any way, shape or form, and uh… well, I don't wanna go lookin' for my brother on my own, so if there's any way you could possibly help, like maybe cancel out Sam's orders or something, that would be really awesome. Um, amen?"

There was a long moment of silence. "Maybe I did it wrong," Dean offered sheepishly.

Then there was the sound of flapping wings.

"Dean." Both men startled and turned to see Castiel standing in the entryway to the front room. "I heard your prayer."

"Good," Dean said, hauling himself up to his feet. "Uh, can you help?"

"I can," the angel answered. "Bobby Singer," he said, turning to face the grizzled Hunter. "It is good to meet you."

"Uh, likewise," Bobby said cautiously, holding out a hand. Castiel started at it for a little too long before reaching out and clasping it with his own.

After a brief handshake, Castiel turned back to Dean. "Sam's powers have their basis in the demon's blood he was fed as a child," he said, "but the purpose of the blood was to _unlock_ the natural potential that Sam already had."

"Whoa, wait a minute," Dean cut in. "You're saying that Sam was meant to be psychic, demon blood or no?"

"Not exactly," Castiel said. "Many humans have the potential, but without the correct trigger at the correct moment, most have their abilities remain dormant their entire lives. Sam had the potential, but that did not mean his abilities were going to show without question. Azazel's blood was a trigger, and a ritualistic one at that."

"Oh," Dean said. "So…"

"So, Sam's powers still have a strong basis in his humanity," Castiel said. "The grace of an angel is strong enough to override them _because_ of his humanity."

Dean wasn't quite sure that he followed, but he didn't have a chance to question the angel further. Castiel turned to Bobby, placed two fingers to his forehead, and then vanished.

Dean blinked. "Man, the guy sure doesn't get how to do goodbye's," he observed before looking at Bobby. "So, how you feelin'?"

Bobby frowned thoughtfully for a minute. "It's like there was an itch at the back of my brain," he said, "one I couldn't ignore, had to obey. S'gone now."

"So you can come with me."

"Yep."

"Good," Dean said. "Let's hit the road."

It really sucked, not having the Impala to drive, but Bobby's old Camaro was up and running, so they hopped into it and set off, both men silently hoping they'd get there in time to find Sam. The drive was slightly awkward, and Dean knew full well why that was. Bobby clearly wanted to know if he remembered Hell, probably wanted him to talk about it, but Dean couldn't talk about it, _wouldn't_ talk about it, so the older man never said a word. It still hung between them, though, even when Dean dozed in the passenger seat.

Twelve tedious hours later, they reached the city of Logan, and Dean immediately directed them to the right motel. Sure enough, the Impala was parked in the parking lot, black paint shining under the noon-day sun. But then the plan met a massive bump in the road.

Sam wasn't there. He and the girl with him had checked out that morning.

"Checked out?" _Shit._ Dean could feel the panic rising in his chest as he ran over to the Impala, completely ignoring Bobby's questions as he wrenched hard on the passenger-side door.

It opened.

Dean gaped at the front seat, taking in the sight of the car keys, Sam's cell phone and credit cars, all lying oh-so-innocently on the pale leather. He snatched up the keys and ran to the trunk, unlocking it and throwing it open.

The trunk's arsenal was severely depleted, the remaining items in such a state of disarray that Dean could only conclude that Sam and Ruby must have packed in a hurry before abandoning the car. But why would they do that?

"He's not here," he said aloud, suddenly realizing that Bobby was standing next to him. "He left." He finally managed to pull his eyes from the trunk and stared at his friend. "Why would he leave?"

"I don't know,," Bobby replied quietly. "But somehow, I doubt that the kid has _any_ idea you're alive again."

"Yeah," Dean said softly, returning his gaze to the nearly-empty trunk. "I guess we've got a massive manhunt to get goin', then."

"Looks like," Bobby said. "Let's head back to my place, see what we can figure out."

Dean nodded silently. He closed the trunk of his beloved car and climbed into the front seat. He _had_ to find Sam, had to save him. He _had_ to.


	4. Four: Aftermath

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Four: Aftermath  
**

 **So you know how it's canon in the show that time in Hell passes differently than it does on Earth? Well, I decided that it's the same for Heaven. We'll see more of that in future chapters, but I just wanted to give you a head's up now that ten years in Heaven = one month on Earth, just like Hell. I hope all my American peeps had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend! My husband I went to my in-laws cabin in the mountains, and our kids had a blast!**

* * *

The next two weeks after Dean's death were spent reviewing everything there was to know about demons and Hell _(there had been no way to free Dad, but surely there's a way to free Dean)_ , summoning Crossroads demons, drinking, and having nightmares of Dean being torn up by the invisible Hellhound. Soon, Sam had no leads, no ideas, and the last of his hope was dissipating quickly.

Lisa Braeden called during those two weeks to ask about Dean and Sam coming to Ben's ninth birthday party. Sam couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth.

"There was an accident," he said somberly, "with… a witch. Dean is… he's in a coma. I don't know how to wake him up."

"Oh God," Lisa whispered. "Sam I — I'm so sorry. Can I ask where…?"

"It isn't safe to tell you where he is," Sam told her quietly. "And I don't know how long it'll take to figure this out."

Lisa was silent for several seconds. "Will you let us know if you ever find a way to wake him up?"

"Yeah," Sam said, voice choked with emotion. "Take care of yourself and Ben, Lisa."

"I will. You take care of yourself, too."

It was easier to turn to drink at the end of those two weeks with that lie sitting sour at the back of Sam's mouth.

 _Dean is dead._

Two days into his drinking binge, two demons attacked. Sam barely fended them off and killed them both with Ruby's knife. Kurdish demon killing blade, his research told him. Whatever. Dean was still in Hell, special Kurdish blade aside.

Sam regretted not having the instructions to make those hex bags Ruby had carried around to cloak his location, but since he couldn't find a way to bring Dean back, maybe being killed was best.

What was the point of living without his brother?

There were regular demon attacks over the next two weeks. Despite being constantly intoxicated, he managed to stay alive. He didn't want to be. There was no point in any of it when Dean wasn't there.

Then, one night, Sam dreamed of Dean, strung up with chains and meat hooks, screaming under the hand of a demon as he was cut up into little pieces.

 _"Yes," the demon croons, "scream nice and loud for Alistair."_

Sam woke up and retched all over himself, horrified by what his mind had created for him.

He hit the booze even harder after that.

* * *

"This particular soul was gifted, one could say, with abilities beyond that which the average humans were given by our Father," Sariah told Castiel and Balthazar a few days after Castiel had delivered Danielle to Jared's Heaven. "Most who have abilities exceeding the status quo do not have those abilities carry through beyond the veil and into Heaven."

"So this Danielle is unique," Balthazar said flatly.

"Yes," Sariah replied. "It would seem she is."

"Does she pose a threat to Heaven?" Castiel asked with concern. "If she was able to sense my presence, could she become more aware of her surroundings and try to escape her Heaven?"

"Well, why would she want to escape?" questioned Balthazar. "You said that she did a great service for our cause on Earth and was rewarded by being placed with her beloved even though they weren't soul mates." Castiel nodded, as did Sariah. Balthazar shrugged. "So, then, what cause could she have to want to leave when she's been given everything promised her?"

Castiel turned to face his fellow soldier. "You didn't hear her voice," he said. "She was most angry when she sensed my presence, almost as though she thought she had no reason to trust me or any other angel."

"My superiors are concerned because of this," Sariah cut in. "We have been asked to consider Danielle Palmer, and by extension, Jared Palmer, as potentially… troublesome." Her voice held distaste for the word. "Our garrison has been ordered to place periodic surveillance in their Heaven. We must be certain that Danielle will not attempt to do anything but enjoy her place in paradise with her life partner."

Castiel volunteered to take the first shift. Balthazar offered to partner with him, seemingly curious about this new soul. They flew off to the Heaven Danielle was sharing with Jared and stationed themselves some distance away.

Immediately, Castiel had the impression that Danielle knew they were there. She and Jared were eating food on a blanket in the middle of the valley Castiel had seen on his last visit, and upon their arrival, he was almost certain that her posture had changed from relaxed to stiff. However, there was no change in the conversation she was having with Jared, so Castiel thought maybe he was seeing things that weren't there to be seen. Maybe he had read too much into Danielle's entrance into this piece of paradise.

"So you think there's a bigger plot?" Jared was asking.

"I don't think," Danielle told him. "I _know_ there's a bigger plot. And fool that I was, I played right into it."

"Why d'you think that?"

"Because I… I had told myself I would do _anything_ to see you again," Danielle answered, voice low and sad. "And when I was presented with the chance to see you again, I took it. I went against _every_ moral code I have because an _angel_ told me it was my one shot at seeing you again, at being able to spend eternity with you." She looked down. "They said I was doing Heaven's work. I feel like I was a pawn in a political scheme."

Castiel listened to all of this and frowned. How could doing the work of their Father feel like less than what it was?

"What did she do?" Balthazar asked.

"I do not know," Castiel answered, noticing that Danielle's shoulders were now ramrod straight, "only that it was the work of Heaven."

Balthazar frowned at the female. "Then why isn't she pleased?" he asked. "Unless she had to take a life…"

"Why would she take a life?" Castiel asked.

"It's just…" Balthazar trailed off. "I heard rumors of a steady stream of souls coming into Heaven that had been killed on Earth due to unusual impurities."

"Impurities," Castiel echoed. "What sort of impurities?"

"I don't know," Balthazar said. "I suppose I am just… speculating that she was the source of the deaths. Unless she tells Jared what it was that she did, we may never know." He tiled his head, watching the couple as they turned the topic of conversation to something simple and light.

Still, Danielle never seemed to truly relax for the duration of Castiel and Balthazar's shift.

When their shift ended, the two angels reported to Sariah. "She is most cognizant of her surroundings," their leader said thoughtfully. "Most souls do not realize they are in Paradise."

"Could she have an effect on her life partner?" asked Castiel. "Could he, too, become more aware of the passage of time and his place in Heaven?"

"I am afraid so," Sariah answered, "but separating them permanently is not an option as it goes against the promises made before she did what was asked of her. Perhaps if she becomes troublesome, it might become necessary to…" She trailed off and shook her head. "Thank you both for your report. You may return to your usual duties."

Castiel left Sariah's presence, but his thoughts kept straying to the strange soul in their care. What could Danielle have meant about political schemes?

His next shift guard-watching the soul was done alone about two weeks later. Danielle and Jared's Heaven was different this time. Jared was involved in a memory and Danielle was silently watching. Castiel remained hidden as always, but then —

"I know you're there."

Danielle turned away from Jared's memory to face Castiel directly. "D'you have a form I'm capable of seeing?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and placing her hands on her hips.

Castiel considered his options very carefully. His orders were to observe only, which meant he should leave and report this attempt at interaction right away.

And yet…

This soul intrigued him. Castiel couldn't identify what it was exactly that drew him to this female, but he found he didn't want to leave. So, he carefully formed the visage of a nondescript human form without his majestic wings, and allowed it to appear to Danielle. "Hello, Danielle," he said.

Danielle gave a little sound from her throat and stalked forward. "Got a name?" she asked impertinently.

"My name is Castiel," the angel answered.

Danielle's eyes narrowed. "You're the one who brought me here," she said.

"That is correct," Castiel answered, "but that is not something you should have been aware of."

"Seriously?" Danielle scoffed. "I wasn't supposed to be aware of the bright lights, o-or the blinding presence of angelic power standing over me, holding me so close I could burst into flames right then and there? How could I _not_ notice any of that?"

Jared let out a loud bark of laughter from his memory. "Why is your life partner not involved in this conversation right now?" Castiel asked curiously.

Danielle glared at him. "Because I made him," she said dismissively. "I have questions, and I'm guessing you have answers."

"But what you have done to Jared is manipulative and shouldn't be possible."

Danielle laughed. "Wow. You're really gonna say that? To _me_?"

"Why would I say anything else?"

"After how _manipulative_ your bosses were?" Danielle snorted and crossed her arms over her chest as she threw the word right back at him with nothing less than venom in her voice. "It's hard to know where the line is after the _shit_ I went through."

Castiel considered the human before him, and her shoulders grew more and more tense as the seconds dragged on. "What wrongs do you believe were done to you by my superiors?" he finally asked.

Danielle's face contorted into a most unpleasant expression. "They _abused_ my faith," she snarled, "twisted it so I'd do their dirty work and set a — a damn _chain reaction_ into motion that included me sacrificing myself… All so they'd get what they want!"

Castiel shook his head. "This does not sound like the work of my superiors," he told her. "I'm certain you were and now are mistaken in their intentions."

Danielle burst out laughing. "What was I thinking," she finally said, "hoping that a damn _angel_ would believe the words of a lowly soul!" She turned and started walking toward Jared. "You'll never believe me so long as you're so certain that angels can do no wrong," she tossed over her shoulder. "Now get yourself all invisible again, I'm done talking to you."

Castiel obeyed the command without even thinking about it as Danielle stepped up behind Jared and said in a strangely compelling tone of voice, "Remember me."

Jared's head snapped up and he immediately turned, looking baffled at his surroundings. "Did I…? Was I lost?"

Danielle threw her arms around Jared and hugged him tightly. "You were," she said, voice shaky and body trembling against Jared's. "I wasn't sure if I was gonna find you!"

Jared wrapped his arms around Danielle and pulled her even closer. "You'll always find me," he said softly. "I know it."

Danielle had lied to Jared.

Why? Just in the hopes of speaking to an angel? To him?

And he had broken protocol to speak with the soul.

This would not look good to his superiors.


	5. Five: Next Steps

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Five: Next Steps  
**

 **If you've seen season 8 of the show, then you know all about Heaven's Intelligence Division and the fact that Heaven has its own prison. There's a brief mention of both of these things in this chapter.  
**

 **Also, remember that time passes much more quickly in both Heaven and Hell than it does on Earth in this story. 1 month on Earth = 10 years in Heaven/Hell. Enjoy!**

* * *

"So, what's been goin' on since I went downstairs?" Dean asked the moment he and Bobby had returned to the salvage yard and Bobby's home.

The older Hunter sighed and pulled off his cap as he took a seat in his study. "At first? Just more of the same. Demonic possessions were still on the rise, along with missing persons reports all over the place." He frowned, eyes going distant. "Me, Ellen, Jo… we couldn't look for Sam, but we could track this, so that's what we did between Hunts and runnin' phones for other Hunters.

"Anyway, around the end of October, a lot of those missing people suddenly started showin' up." Bobby shook his head. "Most of 'em were living, but a few were dead, stabbed up through the chin or in the heart with a blade whose length matched the one Ruby had. And then _more_ folks started goin' missin' startin' end'a October and into November, but their relatives reported strange behavior in the days before." He suddenly started searching through one of his many stacks of paper. "Let's see…" He pulled a series of stapled papers free and started flipping through them. "Here we go. There was a James Novak, went by Jimmy, who vanished that month, and his wife said he claimed an angel named…" He trailed off, face going blank.

"Bobby?" Dean asked "An angel named what?"

"Castiel."

Dean moved closer to look at the face on the missing persons report. "That's him," he said after a moment. "That's Castiel, or his vessel, I guess." He sighed and scrubbed at his face. "That matches up with when Castiel said Sam started drinking demon blood again." Dean smiled grimly before a yawn broke through.

"You've been awake long enough," Bobby said, setting his papers down and shooting Dean a stern look. "Why don't you go get some sleep?"

"We need to find Sam," Dean said, shaking his head.

"We'll find him, son," Bobby said, standing up, "but you're no good to me if you end up collapsing from exhaustion. Now get, we've both been awake too long."

Dean sighed, but finally gave in and retreated to the room he and Sam normally shared when staying here. He rifled through his duffel bag (Sam had kept it in the Impala's trunk, which came as an immense relief to Dean) and found some clothes to change into. It wasn't until he pulled off his shirt that he realized two things:

First, he had a burn on his left shoulder in the shape of a hand print. Was it Castiel's?

And second, his necklace, the amulet Sam gave to him for Christmas when he was twelve years old, he didn't have it. Dean searched through his things, but it was gone. Did Sam have it? He felt like a piece of him was missing. Just like Sam was missing.

When he finally gave into his exhaustion, it was only a few short hours before the nightmares invaded and he woke, sweating and gasping for breath. 106 years of Hell. It really felt like he'd been gone forever, even if the time up here didn't reflect it.

 _Please,_ he begged silently as he scrubbed his face with his hands, _please let me find my brother again. He needs me with him and I need him back._ He wasn't sure if he was actually praying this time around, but if that was what it took to bring Sam back…

It was a while before Dean was able to give himself back into the arms of sleep.

* * *

"Sam?"

It had been a month since Dean went to Hell. Sam was beyond exhausted, greasy, drunk, and starving, but none of that impaired his ability to sense demons or identify emotions.

"Ruby?"

The demon had ditched blonde in favor of dark brown hair and eyes. "It's another dead Jane Doe," she said, holding up a slip of paper that Sam didn't care to read. "Took me damn near a day to find one that wasn't ugly as fuck."

Sam stared and raised his eyebrows after a moment.

Ruby's expression softened. "I… I'm sorry for what happened," she said quietly.

Sam didn't want to hear it. "I thought you were dead," he said bluntly.

"No," Ruby answered, striding over and taking a seat next to Sam on the floor of the abandoned farmhouse he was currently ensconced in. "She — Lilith sent me into the Pit. I'm lucky I managed to escape at all."

It was the truth, or as much as Ruby was willing to tell. Sam looked away. "What are you doing here?" he finally asked, holding up the bottle in his hand and scowling when he realized it was empty.

"What do you _think_ I'm doing here?" Ruby said incredulously. "I promised Dean I would be there for you if his death was unavoidable." She maneuvered herself so she was kneeling right in front of Sam, gently reaching out and placing a hand under his chin. He didn't want to meet her eyes. "Sam, please," she cajoled softly, and he forced himself to look up at her.

"I broke out of Hell to keep my promise to your brother," she told him in a quiet, sad voice. "I don't care if you wanna sit around and drink all day, or seek vengeance, or do research until your eyes go blind. You're not doing it without me."

"I already sent away Bobby, Ellen, and Jo," Sam told the demon. "Why should I let you stay?"

"Because you can't force me to leave like you could them," Ruby said simply. "Because you don't have it in you to kill me." She tilted her head slightly, eyes sorrowful. "Because I made a promise to the most important person in your life."

Sam looked at the blade lying next to him, ready for the next attack. It would be easy to pick it up and run it through the brunette, and yet…

Sighing, Sam met the chocolate brown eyes again. "Fine," he said. "Stay. Don't expect me to do anything in return."

Ruby smiled and huffed a tiny laugh. "I can live with that," she said, holding up one of her hex bags that Sam was sure was spelled to cloak the holder's location from demons. "But first thing, I won't tolerate surprise demon attacks." She stuffed the bag in her jacket pocket. "Second, I keep the knife until you're ready to prove you're actually in fighting shape. And third, you need better digs with a fucking shower. You _stink_ , Sam."

Sam chuckled for the first time in ages. "Fine," he huffed, tossing aside the empty liquor bottle he still held and handing Ruby the knife. She rose and backed away to give him room to stand. He wobbled some, but managed to keep from crashing back to the ground. Ruby gathered the bare essentials he had brought in with him, helped him load up the Impala, and then she insisted on being the one to drive. Sam put up a token fight, thinking of what Dean would say to him if he knew he was letting a demon drive his baby, but quickly capitulated because he knew he was in no shape to be behind the wheel. He hadn't been in good shape to do anything for the last few weeks (the last month since Dean died).

 _Fuck. Dean is in Hell._

Ruby found a decent motel about an hour down the road, got them checked in, and then all but shoved Sam into the bathroom to get himself cleaned up. It was kind of weird to have a demon on his ass about the way he smelled, but Sam couldn't help but take some kind of comfort in having someone around to fuss over him.

 _What would Dean think of the way you've been living for the last month?_

Sam turned on the water as hot as he could stand it and tried to drown out his thoughts. That night in his dreams, he screamed uselessly at the demon torturing his brother, begged Alistair to stop it, to leave Dean alone. He woke, sobbing against Ruby, and clung to her in lieu of having no one else to turn to. The demon said nothing, but held him, all the same.

* * *

Castiel hovered warily out of Danielle's range, uncertain as to whether or not he was truly ready to resume the duty of guarding… well, _watching_ the young soul.

Sariah had been very displeased about his interaction with Danielle, and so Castiel had been reassigned to stand guard at the doors to Heaven's prison for a period of ten years.

The time he spent there had been most… unpleasant.

And the message he was meant to take away from the experience was clear:

 _Do not disobey your orders._

Danielle was sitting at a corner table in a bar, clicking away at the device in front of her (a lap-topper?) as Jared was involved in a memory with what appeared to be coworkers, or possibly friends. Danielle suddenly sighed, glanced up right to where Castiel was watching her, and shook her head.

"I was wondering if you'd ever come back," she said, and Castiel knew she must to speaking to him."Sariah showed up after you left and threatened to send me to the 'reconditioning specialist' over in the Intelligence Division if I didn't get my act together and start playing by the rules like a good little soul who so _kindly_ did the work of Heaven."

It did not seem as though she _was_ playing by the rules. Still, Castiel kept his silence.

Danielle rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. "I get it," she continued stubbornly, "you've got rules you're supposed to follow, and I'm supposed to do the same. I won't ask you to reveal yourself again, but don't expect me to stop talking to you. Just you, though." She looked over at where Jared was laughing at a joke one of his memory-friends had just told. "I don't really like any of the others."

Castiel remained quiet. "You know, Castiel, you've been gone for what, ten years?" She smirked. "Please, feel free to let Sariah know that I'm aware of how much time has passed. Most of the time, Jared knows, too." She started tapping away on the… computer? "Anyway, I wanted to tell you a story."

Despite himself, Castiel drew a tad closer, and from the small grin tugging at the corner of Danielle's mouth, he knew she was more than aware of it. "Once upon a time," the young woman began, "there was a brother named Michael who had a younger brother. Michael always did everything asked of him by his father. His little brother loved their father, but he often questioned his commands, particularly when asked to care for creatures he thought weren't worthy of his care." She looked right at Castiel. "Then the younger brother went too far, did something unthinkable."

Where was she going with this story?

"The brother snuck into a garden, hoping to trick the creatures into acting as much less than they were. Then he went after the first daughter born to the creatures and twisted everything she was from goodness and light to darkness and evil. He convinced one of her brother's to kill their other brother. And so the father commanded Michael to punish his brother and lock him in a cage in the depths of Hell."

Lucifer.

Danielle was talking about the fallen angel.

"But what no one knew was that the father created a way for the younger brother to be set free. All it took was the father leaving his sons alone, and Michael's anger drove him to make a choice that would one day set that brother free. You probably know it as the Apocalypse."

Castiel almost allowed himself to become visible, almost strode up to Danielle and demanded to know why she was telling him all of this, how she knew such horrible things, if they were at all true… But he had his orders. He was not, under any circumstances, to interact with this soul.

"I think that's enough for today," Danielle said abruptly. "Don't hesitate to report the full details of this _encounter_ to Sariah." She glanced at her device, frowned, and then shut it. "I've got a memory to enjoy with my husband. See ya around, Castiel."

Within seconds, Danielle had risen, slid into place under the arm Jared threw out right as she walked up, and then she was just as lost in the memory as her life partner had been.

This soul was most curious, Castiel thought. He left and sought out Sariah's presence so he could tell her everything Danielle had said to him. His superior stared at him for a long time in contemplative silence when he finished. Finally, she said, "Thank you for sharing this with me, Castiel. It is undoubtedly falsehoods she was speaking, meant to try and sway you from what is right. However, I think it would be… wise, to have you partnered with other members of the garrison from now on."

"I agree," Castiel replied. "Thank you, Sariah."

A companion would ensure he was not swayed by anything the soul tried to tell him. In fact, a companion should make Danielle stop talking to him altogether.

That could only be a good thing.


	6. Six: It Begins

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Six: It Begins  
**

 **We have our first chapter that finds its origins in canon. Much of this chapter comes from the episode 4.02 "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester", but with Ellen and Jo in place of Sam since he's still, you know, missing. We gotta start hitting on the main plot about the Seals sometime, right?**

* * *

 _"Mm-mmm do I love the sight of entrails," Alistair says over Dean's shoulder as he slowly and carefully guts the soul in front of him. "Very good, Dean. Now, try angling up ever so slightly on the next cut, it gives some delicious results."_

 _Dean grins and does as instructed, and as ribs and heart are slowly exposed, the soul before him groans, cries out, screams its pain for all to hear (those who care to listen, anyway) and Alistair hums with pleasure and approval as Dean reduces the human into its most basic pieces —_

The sun was only just beginning to rise, but Dean figured he'd slept enough and climbed out of bed, heading to the bathroom to relieve himself before going downstairs to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast.

Bobby came in nearly an hour later, still looking exhausted but clearly unable to resist the smell of coffee. "You should be sleeping, son," he yawned as he sat down at the table.

Dean shrugged and poured Bobby a cup, setting it down in front of his friend before taking a seat at the table with his own cup cradled in his hands. "Had a really weird dream," he said, unwilling to voice aloud the nightmares that plagued his sleep. "We need to do a search of stolen cars in Odgen," he changed the subject, "Sam would go for inconspicuous, but Ruby might pick something a little more flashy."

"You can do that," Bobby said after taking a sip of the coffee Dean had handed him, "I think we need to do a little research on angels, try to learn a little more about what we're dealing with now."

He didn't like it, but it made sense. "Okay, then," Dean said, standing up to rinse out his coffee cup. "Lemme know what you find out."

Two hours later, Dean had barely accomplished anything, his thoughts still preoccupied by the nightmares he'd had.

"So there's tons of lore about angels," Bobby said, striding into the room and startling Dean. "I don't think I've ever seen so much information on a single subject."

"Oh?" Dean asked, rubbing at his eyes and grimacing at how gritty they still felt. Why had he decided it was a good idea to get up so early?

"Fact is that they're the only things that can pull souls out of Hell without making a Deal or sacrificing another life in the process," Bobby told him, dropping a book on the desk that depicted an angel pulling a screaming soul from a flaming pit and taking the empty chair next to the desk. "I don't even think you can kill 'em."

"I guess that confirms it, then," Dean sighed, running his hands through his disheveled hair, which was a feat given how short it was. "Castiel's an angel. They really _do_ exist."

"It's a lot to take in, isn't it?" Bobby said shrewdly.

"Yeah," Dean sighed as he looked up at Bobby. "Why don't the angels want me to find Sam?" he asked.

"I dunno, son," Bobby said, looking sympathetic. "We _will_ find him, though, and we'll help him detox and whatever else he needs."

"Yeah," Dean said, frowning. "I hope you're right."

The next day was spent researching angels, missing cars, even tracking demonic omens in hopes of figuring out a discernable pattern that Sam and Ruby might be following in their quest to have Sam exorcise demons with his mind. So far, there wasn't any luck, but Dean had to believe that they'd find something sooner or later. It wasn't long before Dean was feeling frustrated with his inability to figure out where Sam had gone after vanishing from Ogden.

Ellen and Jo returned home about three days after he had arrived at Bobby's, covered in dirt and missing all his scars. A long, tearful reunion only came after Bobby managed to convince the two women that yes, Dean was alive and _yes_ , it was really him, but Dean figured that was likely to be a common reaction until word finally got out to their friends that angels existed and that they had pulled Dean from Hell.

If only other Hunters could find Sam for Dean, but then he wasn't sure he wanted to _trust_ any other Hunters with the knowledge of what his brother could do. Gordon Walker and his crew had been bad enough with their obsession to kill anything they deemed evil or just wrong.

Jo stared at him. "You're actually alive," she said, wonder still coloring her voice.

"Yep," Dean said. "Not my choice, mind you, but here I am, totally whole."

Jo frowned. "Not your choice?"

"Oh, right." Dean clamped his lips together for a moment. "It was an angel."

Jo blinked.

"Angel?" Ellen said from the kitchen table.

Dean nodded. "I didn't believe him at first when he said that's what he was, but I guess they _do_ exist, after all."

Ellen stared at him for a very long moment. "All right," she finally said. "Have you been able to make any headway into finding Sam?"

Dean loved that she knew him well enough to know that would've already been his top priority.

"Sam's… basically gone into hiding," Dean finally answered, frustration bubbling up inside him. "According to the angel that brought me back, Ruby and Sam have been working together and uh…" He took a deep breath. "She got him addicted again."

There was a long moment of silence. "You mean to the demon blood," Ellen said softly.

"Yeah," Dean said, nodding his head. "Turns out Ruby's been making these hex bags that cloak their location from both demons and angels, and what's more, the damn angels don't want me anywhere near him." He swallowed and scrubbed at his face. "We've been trying to track him down, but no luck so far."

"The angels don't want you to find Sam?" Jo said, and she looked both confused and saddened by the news.

Dean shook his head. "They think he's _dangerous._ And I… I don't think Sam even _knows_ I'm alive again. I mean, if he did, I _know_ he'd drop Ruby in a heartbeat and detox rather than try to get strong enough to go after Lilith." Dean swallowed hard, hating how his throat began to tighten. "I don't want him turning into a junkie for some needless revenge, and I don't need him thinking that he's the only one who can kill the bitch because I don't believe that Ruby's way is the only way to take Lilith out." He shook his head and turned away, spying the bottle of Jack he'd left on the counter that morning and snagging it.

"Anyway, I'll pray to Castiel the angel again, see if he can lift Sam's do-not-follow order on the both of you."

"Wait, what?" Ellen said.

"Right," Bobby spoke up, "turns out that angels can override Sam's command. He already did it for me, that's how I was able to help Dean with tryin' to find Sam."

The lights flickered without warning and Bobby's phone rang. He snagged it. "Singer Salv — Jed, slow down, what's —"

It was hard to miss the sound of screaming over the phone. Ellen's phone started to ring, and she answered it quickly. "Olivia, what's goin' on?" Her eyes widened. "Wait, ghosts —?"

More screaming.

Jo's phone began to ring. "Carl," she said, "please tell me you and RC are okay."

Within moments, more screaming joined the other lines.

Dean stood frozen, taking in the scared expressions and shaking hands of the others. Bobby hung up and snagged the cell phones, ending the calls and tossing them to the nearest flat surface. "Pack up," he said, "we've gotta find out what's goin' on."

* * *

"This is not good," Dean declared with a sigh into his phone, stepping back from Olivia's body. "Salt line's intact, she clearly was makin' use of her EMF meter…"

"How bad is it?" Jo asked him over the line.

"It's bad," Dean said grimly. "I've never seen a ghost do this to a person. You get to Carl and RC yet?"

"We're pulling up right now," Jo answered. "Mom says Bobby got to Jed's, and he's basically a smear of blood and guts."

Dean scrubbed his face. "What's going on? Why did a buncha ghosts suddenly wanna gank off-duty Hunters?"

"I wish I knew," Jo sighed. Then she gasped, and Dean could hear Ellen swearing over the phone.

"Dead?" Dean asked quietly.

"Very," Jo replied, and Dean could hear the horrified grimace in her voice. There was a weird rustling sound, and then Ellen's voice came over the line.

"Head back to Bobby's, quick as you can," she said, voice tense. "I've never seen anything like this. We need to get somewhere with protection."

"I hear ya," Dean sighed, taking one last look at Olivia. "Stay safe."

"You, too," Ellen responded before ending the call.

* * *

Ghosts had been the only clue.

Dean's phone went off with the next one.

"Jo was just attacked," Ellen told Dean in a rush. "She says the ghost was Teresa Ellis, a girl taken out by the ghost I had to save her from back in Philadelphia."

"The serial killer ghost, right? I don't think I ever really asked what happened."

"That's the one," Ellen confirmed. "I got to Philly in time to save Jo, but not in time to keep the damn ghost from killing the other girl." She sighed. "Anyway, Jo says Teresa had something on her hand, a symbol of some kind, but nothing mainstream and nothing that Teresa had when she was alive. Arm yourself and _drive faster_ , cause these ghosts are strong and angry as hell _._ "

"Copy that," Dean said, pulling over at a gas station and striding to the trunk to arm himself to the teeth. "What's Bobby gotta say about all of this?"

"Haven't called him yet," Ellen said. "Will you do that?"

"On it," Dean answered. "See you soon." He ended the call and pressed the speed-dial for Bobby's personal cell.

Bobby didn't pick up.

Dean finished filling his gas tank and tried again.

Still no answer.

"Damn," he cursed to himself, shivering in the chilly, evening air and sending Ellen a quick text:

 _Bobby didn't answer. Hurry!_

He snapped his phone shut as his breath fogged in his face.

Aw, crap.

"Come out, come out, whoever you are," Dean spoke quietly, raising his sawed-off and feeling thankful there were no civilians nearby at the moment.

"Dean Winchester," drawled a tired, female voice. "Still so bossy."

Dean whipped around to take in the sight of a girl with shoulder-length, dishwater blonde hair and drab clothing.

"You don't recognize me?" she asked him after a moment.

Dean clenched his teeth and took in her face. It did look familiar —

"Meg?"

"It's okay," said the girl, said Meg. "I'm not a demon."

It was the ghost of the girl the demon had possessed.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you," Dean said quickly, "but I don't have time for this." He caught a brief glimpse of a weird symbol on Meg's hand before he fired his shotgun and launched himself into his car.

He had to get back to Sioux Falls. Now.


	7. Seven: The New Normal

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Seven: The New Normal**

 **I've been doing job training for the past two weeks in preparation of teaching fifth grade for the next school year. It was intense! And it had homework! I thought I was finished with being the student in that type of capacity, but it turns out that there is always something new (or more) to learn. Crazy, right?**

 **So the last chapter was a cliffhanger. I'm afraid I won't be resolving that one just yet. We're gonna go spend some time with Sam and Cas before returning to Dean's current predicament in the chapter following this one. Enjoy!**

 **Oh, and P.S. Reviews are love :D**

* * *

It only took a week of having Ruby around before Sam started to willingly choose a sober life over a drunken one. The pain of his loss was much sharper without the alcohol in his system, but it was harder to go on a bender with Ruby's attentive care to food and health.

"I haven't found a way to bring Dean back," he finally said one day while eating a salad and ignoring Ruby's giant platter of fries at the latest no-name diner on the road to nowhere. "Do you know a way?"

Ruby sighed and leaned back in her seat. "I don't," she answered honestly. "At least, not a way that involves his soul being human rather than tainted and twisted into that of a demon." She abruptly sat up straighter and reached out to take Sam's hand. "That doesn't mean you should give up, though."

Sam swallowed and nodded. After a moment, a thought occurred to him. "Maybe the Trickster," he mused softly.

"The what?" Ruby asked.

"Loki, the Trickster," Sam answered. "Back in August last year, we had a run-in with him. Our second, actually. He uh —" Sam struggled to describe to Ruby the events of Broward County. Ruby listened, eyes wide and emotions filled with a surprising level of sorrow.

"I can't believe you went through all of that," she said. "Why on earth would you even _want_ to see this… damn _demi-god_ again?"

"Because maybe he's got the juice to bring Dean back for real," Sam said. "No, listen," he hurried on as Ruby opened her mouth to speak again, "throwing me into an alternate reality? And no one, including Dean, had any idea about it! I mean, I dunno, but unless you can think of a better idea…" He trailed off and watched Ruby look away. "We have no other leads, no other ideas."

"This is what you wanna do?" Ruby asked.

Sam nodded. "The knife didn't work on Lilith, we couldn't find the Colt, let alone the demon who has it, and I'm not doin' the blood thing again, so I have no way to kill that bitch. Besides ganking Lilith, the only thing I want is my brother back."

Ruby chewed her lip. "Fine," she said. "But how do we find this Loki?"

"We've gotta find bizarre cases where people are basically getting their 'just desserts' for being dicks," Sam answered with a small grin as he resumed eating his salad. "I've tracked him before, I know I can do it again."

"But… you said if he didn't want to be found, you couldn't find him."

"Yes, but he doesn't know that I'm looking for him. That gives me an advantage." Sam took a sip of water. "I just need a way to keep from being made out as soon as I show up this time."

Ruby frowned thoughtfully. "I might have a way," she said, "but I'm gonna have to leave you alone for a couple days while I track down some info I think could be of use for this." She popped a couple fries in her mouth, then fixed Sam with a serious look. "Do you promise not to go off on another bender while I'm gone?"

Sam huffed a short laugh. "I promise," he answered.

* * *

 _Dean seems to have a moment of respite even though he's still chained to the rack. Sam floats over to him cautiously. "Dean?" he asks, but his brother doesn't answer. "Dean, I wish you could hear me. I'm trying to find the Trickster, Loki. I think there's a chance he's powerful enough to get you out of this place, but you've gotta hold on, Dean, you've gotta stay strong!"_

 _"Time's up," laughs a voice Sam has come to know all too well. Dean stiffens, closes his eyes. Rest time is over._

 _"You know," the voice says as it comes closer, "every day could be like this if you would just accept my offer."_

 _"No," Dean says shortly. "I'm not gonna do that."_

 _"Do what?" Sam asks, but Alistair comes into his eyesight, wide grin too full of teeth crunching on bone and sinew._

 _"C'mon, Dean," Alistair says enticingly, "no one likes to be on the rack day in and day out, year after year after year. I'm offering you something that I_ never _offer to anyone." He comes close, too close to Dean. "A way off the rack."_

 _"I'm not going to_ torture _innocent souls," Dean snarls in the demon's face. "Never."_

 _Alistair's face is devoid of that horrible smile for several seconds. "I'll give you another… oh, let's say a year, to reconsider." He raises an instrument of torture that Sam can't identify but terrifies Dean._

 _"Let's get started." The smile is back, and Sam cries out uselessly, voice drowned out by his brother's screams of fear and pain —_

Sam bolted up and out of bed, the taste of bile in the back of his throat. He barely made it to the toilet before everything he had eaten that day came out in desperate, terrified, horrified heaves. He raked his hands through his hair to hold it out of his face as he panted over the bowl.

That had been too real.

Too, too fucking real.

 _Dean. Oh god, Dean…_

Sam didn't sleep again that night.

* * *

"You didn't break your promise, did you?" Ruby asked when she returned two days later. "You look awful."

"Nightmares," Sam answered shortly. "I have a couple of possibilities to check. Did you have any luck?"

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, I think I've got a way to modify our 'cloaking' hex bags to include a Pagan god like Loki." She dropped the bag she had hauled inside on the table and began to pull out various ingredients. "Go get me fries," she commanded. "I'm fuckin' _starving_ after all the hard work I've done."

Sam groused good-naturedly, but went out and fetched food for them both.

When did he start interacting with Ruby in such a… _normal_ way?

* * *

Uriel scowled at Danielle as she performed on a stage, Jared watching her every move with rapt attention. "I do not understand why I must accompany you during your shifts with this soul," he said.

"She has tried to speak falsehoods in an attempt to sway me to her side," Castiel told the other angel. "I believe that your special skills will be of use should she try anything in your presence."

"She seems to be very involved in this memory," Uriel commented.

Castiel watched Danielle for a few seconds. "No, she is well aware of the both of us."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Her shoulders," Castiel answered, pointing them out. "Every time an angel enters Danielle and Jared's Heaven, her shoulders become tense. Can you not see how it is affecting her movement, Uriel?"

The other angel stared at Danielle, then turned to Castiel. "I am more concerned that you are reading her as well as you are," he said.

"Meaning what, exactly?"

Uriel didn't say anything.

"Uriel, I am simply doing my job," Castiel insisted. "Are we not allowed to analyze and interpret the things our charges do? Is it not our duty to be on the lookout for problems? Danielle has been labeled as potentially troublesome. It would be remiss to not learn her tells, her habits, or the things she believes to be true."

"You do realize," Uriel responded, "that last thing you said more than likely involves _speaking_ with the soul?"

"Okay, you know what?" Danielle's voice suddenly echoed across the performance space she was in. Castiel and Uriel's attention snapped to where she stood, arms akimbo and face pinched with negative emotions. "Listening to the two of you arguing is putting a serious crimp in my performance. Can you both just shut the hell up and let me enjoy this memory?"

"Angels again?" Jared asked in a bored tone of voice.

"How could you tell?" Danielle replied with snark and frustration coloring her words, and Jared responded with laughter.

"What are they saying now?" he asked, rising and making his way to the stage.

"Apparently I've been labeled 'potentially troublesome'," Danielle told him. "It's like you feathered idiots think I _chose_ to be able to both sense your presence and hear the words you speak. I haven't actually done _anything_ that could label me as trouble!"

Castiel glanced at Uriel and manifested himself before the young couple. "Castiel!" Uriel hissed angrily, but he ignored the other angel.

"How do you explain that you're aware of the passage of time?" he asked sharply. "Nothing about you makes sense, Danielle Palmer."

"That's…?"

"Castiel," Danielle finished Jared's question, "yeah. And you know what, angel?" She threw her arms out. "I don't have _any_ answers to your questions! I don't know why I notice passage of time or feel you when you're near or hear the words you speak! I just know that I _do_ and I can't just shut it off."

"We've been speaking in Enochian," Uriel suddenly spoke, manifesting next to Castiel. "How do you understand our language?"

"Not a damn clue," Danielle retorted. "Am I really so unique among the countless souls you've got locked away up here?"

"They are _not_ locked up!" Uriel snapped right as Castiel said, "Yes, you _are_ unique, Danielle."

Danielle looked between the two angels and reached out for Jared's hand. He offered it without hesitation. "If the souls here are not locked up," she said quietly, "then why are they not able to interact with any of the others up here? Why can't they freely speak to the angels or even God? Where is he?"

Uriel opened his mouth, paused, and then slowly closed it with an oddly thoughtful expression on his face.

"I'm not going to apologize for any of the things I can do," Danielle added after it became clear that neither Castiel nor Uriel could answer her questions. "And I'd really like it if you'd both leave now." She tugged Jared away and walked out of the recital hall, possibly traveling to another memory. Uriel looked over at Castiel, who made no move to follow the souls.

"Whether she did something to give herself these abilities or not," Uriel finally said, "she _is_ dangerous." He shook his head. "I will make the report to Sariah, if you wish."

Castiel nodded, lost in thought as the other angel departed.

Were all the souls in Heaven locked up? He exited Danielle and Jared's Heaven and took a look around the hallway where their Heaven was situated. It was possible for souls to exit their personal Heaven, this was true, but an alarm would sound if they did so.

They were supposed to stay where they were.

What else could that be but being locked up?

And yet…

Was a soul locked up if it didn't _know_ it was locked up? All the other souls in Heaven were unaware of the passage of time to the best of Castiel's knowledge. None of them had ever shown any inclination to visit the Heavens of other souls, but that was because they didn't _know_ there were others here. Castiel turned back to Danielle's Heaven and creaked open the door.

"Look at this," Danielle was saying, "this guy says he wants my help learning Enochian."

"But who is he?" Jared asked.

"Says his name is Ash," Danielle answered. "Sam and Dean told me about a guy named Ash, a computer genius who helped make their search for the special kids like me possible."

"So he's dead, then?"

"I guess so." There was the sound of typing on a keyboard. "D'you think I should press for more details and make sure this is the same guy?"

"Yes," Jared answered flatly. "I don't trust that he isn't some angel. How did he say he found you, anyway?"

"According to him, sheer dumb luck while messing around," Danielle answered. "At least I know now that it's not just me who's constantly aware of where we are."

"I wish I was better at it," Jared said. "I still get lost."

"Oh Jared, you were up here for over a century before I showed up," Danielle told him, voice softer and kinder than Castiel had ever heard it. "It's going to take some time before you're as good at it as I seem to be, and who knows? Maybe if we can learn more about this guy, he could help somehow."

For reasons Castiel never was able to explain to himself, he chose to leave at this point and not share what he had heard with Sariah or any other angel.

What did it matter if souls tried to speak to each other from different Heavens?

It wasn't as though there were rules preventing it.


	8. Eight: Witness

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Eight: Witness**

 **Confession: I love writing Sam. I'm a total Sam-girl! I could write stories from his perspective all day and probably never break a sweat. Castiel has proven to be more difficult than I first imagined it would, but I'm enjoying from his perspective for a change. Dean is probably the hardest for me to write. Don't get me wrong, I love Dean, he's an amazing, flawed, good person, but his rhythm and humor don't come as naturally to me as Sam's does. I'm more sarcasm and sass than quippy comebacks, but I do try.**

 **Anyway, I'm (not) sorry to break up Dean's story the way that I did. We will now finish my retelling of 4.02. Some of the action and dialogue come from the episode once again. I hope you enjoy it!  
**

* * *

When the Impala pulled up to Bobby's home, Dean's attention was immediately drawn to Jo hauling Bobby away from stacks of junkers, an iron poker clenched in one hand. "Get inside!" she bellowed as soon as she spotted Dean.

Dean did not need telling twice. He grabbed his shotgun and charged up the stairs to the front door, slamming in to find Ellen sailing across the room, a tall, dark man striding after her and yelling, "Why didn't you keep that wolf from killing me? You had the shot, you could've taken it and kept me alive!"

Instantly, Dean had raised his shotgun and blasted the ghost from existence. "Ellen?"

"I'm okay," Ellen gasped out as she took the hand Dean offered to her. Jo and Bobby stumbled into the house, and Bobby directed them down to the basement as he threw a stack of books into everyone's hands.

Dean had been down in the basement many times throughout his life, but he was startled to see a heavy, iron door set into one wall with a Devil's trap on the floor before it. Bobby pulled the door open and ushered the group inside.

"Whoa."

There was no other way for Dean to describe how he felt about the new room he found himself in. It was a perfect circle, the walls and ceiling made of iron. The floor was concrete, but had a perfect Devil's trap inscribed on the floor. The ceiling had a large fan encased in an iron cage with another Devil's trap made of metal welded to it. The only furniture in the room was a small cot that folded up against one of the walls, an army bed, two desks with their own chairs, a mirror also set into a wall, and a short bookshelf. "Bobby," Dean breathed, "this is…"

"Solid iron," Bobby confirmed. "Completely coated in salt. 100% ghost-proof."

"A panic room," Jo said with a satisfied smirk.

"Wow," Dean said, impressed. "When did this happen?"

"We had a free weekend a few months back," Ellen answered, setting her stack of books on the nearest desk and relieving Dean of his own pile.

"You guys are awesome," Dean chuckled as Jo added her stack of books to the desk. "Anyway, what now?"

"I noticed this weird mark on Teresa's hand when she attacked me," Jo answered. "I know I didn't see it when we were both being held by that ghost, so I sketched it on the way back and showed it to Bobby as we were running inside."

"I know I've seen it before," Bobby took over, setting down a large duffel bag on the floor, "s'why I loaded you guys up with all these books 'fore we came down here."

Bobby and Ellen set about looking through the books they had carried in, and Dean sat down with Jo to make salt rounds for their sawed-offs, the supplies coming from the duffel bag.

"So this Castiel is really an angel?" Jo asked after a few minutes.

"It sure seems that way," Dean sighed. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around it."

Jo tilted her head to the side. "Y'know, I caught Sam praying once."

Dean frowned and looked over at Jo. "Really? When was this?"

"It was back when Sam was still recovering from the uh… the farmhouse. In Utah."

Oh. That.

 _"I've watched out for him my whole life," Dean says, staring at the closed laptop that sits innocently inside the trailer of the now-dead Hunter Weyland Kubrick. "It was my one job, even after he walked away from me to go to school. And since he's been back, he's been kidnapped by crazy people and demons, this girl we both trusted stabbed him in the back…" He drops his head into his hands. "And now I'm supposed to let him do the one thing that's damaged him more than anything else."_

 _There is a long moment of silence._

 _"You feel like you're using him as a weapon," FBI Agent Henricksen states._

 _The day that Sam drained a demon of its blood and saved a barn full of folks he barely knew, almost dying in the process and facing_ months _of recovery for his efforts._

"Sam seemed pretty embarrassed to be caught out," Jo continued, bringing Dean back to the present. "He said he had believed in angels for years, that he prayed every day."

How had Dean never known this?

"Our mom," Dean said haltingly, "she uh, she used to say that there were angels watching over us, but after she died, Dad sure didn't believe it, and I know _I_ didn't." He swallowed hard and looked away.

"Sam said that it was Pastor Jim who helped him find his faith," Jo told Dean quietly. They both studiously ignored the slowed movements from the others as they listened in.

 _"Do you believe in angels?" Sam abruptly asks Dean as they walk through the convent Azazel visited over 30 years ago._

At the time, the answer had been no, he didn't.

 _"Surely you know that Sam still prays every day," Azazel says in a mocking voice as he stands by a sleeping Sam, recently freed from possession by the demon Meg._

He had just written off what that damn yellow-eyed demon had said, too focused on having his brother alive and by his side. "Sam said he wanted to tell you, but he knew you didn't believe in God or angels, so he always thought it was just best to leave it alone," Jo spoke softly, an expression of sadness on her face. Dean nodded and met her expression head-on.

"I never meant to make him feel he couldn't share that part of himself," he admitted. "It's just… it's so hard for me to get behind the idea that angels — hell, that _God_ exists. If he doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. There's no rhyme or reason — just random, horrible, evil — I get it, okay. I can roll with that." He leaned forward, still holding Jo's sad gaze. "But if he _is_ out there, what's _wrong_ with him? Where the _hell_ is he while all these decent people are getting _torn_ to shreds? How does he _live_ with himself? You know, why doesn't he help?"

Jo sighed and shrugged. "I don't know," she answered. "I'm sure religious people have some kind of bullshit they say to make you feel better, but I wasn't ever the religious type, especially after my dad died."

Dean noticed that Ellen blinked back tears and let her hair fall in her face to hide her expression at her daughter's admission.

"Found it," Bobby announced. "That symbol, it's called the Mark of the Witness."

"Witness?" Jo echoed in confusion. "Witness to what?"

"The unnatural," Bobby replied. "None of them died what you'd call ordinary deaths. See, these ghosts — they were forced to rise. They woke up in agony. They were like rabid dogs." He sighed and leaned back in his seat. "It ain't their fault. Someone rose them... on purpose."

"Question is, who did it," Ellen said.

"Also, why'd they do it, and how do we stop it," Dean added.

"Well, I don't know about the who," Bobby sighed, "but whoever it was used a spell so powerful it left a mark, a brand on their souls. Whoever did this had big plans. It's called 'the rising of the witnesses'." He looked down at his book again and pulled off his ballcap to scrub at his head nervously. "It figures into an ancient prophecy."

There was something Bobby wasn't saying. It couldn't be good.

"Wait," Dean said, "wait. What — what _book_ is that prophecy from?"

"Well, the widely distributed version's just for tourists, you know. But long story short — Revelations."

"Like, from the Bible?" Jo said with wide eyes.

"Yep," Bobby said. "This is a sign of the Apocalypse."

Dean let that sink in for a minute. "Castiel really is an angel," he whispered, the last of his doubts fading away. "There's no other reason a being like him would be here except for the threat of the end of the world."

The others didn't say anything, but they nodded their agreement.

"So uh, do we have a way to stop this?" Dean finally asked.

"I got a spell to send the witnesses back to rest," Bobby said, "and I'm sure we got all the ingredients here in the house, but the spell's gotta be cast over and open fire."

"Crap," Jo said. "You mean the fireplace in the library."

"Bingo," Bobby said with a nod.

"That's just not as appealing as a uh, ghost-proof panic room, y'know?" Dean told the group. Jo snorted and turned back to their work making rounds for the guns.

* * *

Half an hour later, the four Hunters were ready to leave the panic room.

Well, okay, not really, but Dean knew they had no other choice. Who knew how many other Hunters were dying out there? What if Sam was one of them?

 _He's okay,_ Dean insisted to himself. _Sam's fine. We're gonna stop this crap, and then I'm gonna find him._

"Cover each other," Bobby was saying as he prepared to unlock the door. "And don't run outta ammo until I'm done, or they'll shred you." He grimaced. "Ready?"

Dean nodded tightly, and Bobby opened the door.

The group headed across the basement to the stairs, but they all stopped up short upon seeing another ghost, a man in his twenties with curly hair. "Hey Dean," the ghost said. "Remember me?"

Boy, did Dean ever. It was Ronald, the guy who had fucked up his and Sam's Hunt for a shapeshifter in a bank in Milwaukee with his fear of terminators and laser eyes. Jo didn't give Dean a chance to reply, instead aiming her shotgun and blasting the ghost with salt rock. "It's not a good idea to let them talk," she said tersely, and Dean abruptly couldn't help but notice the bruises on her face from when she had been attacked by Teresa.

The four Hunters charged up the stairs and into the library. Jo quickly made a circle of salt for Bobby to stand in as Ellen and Dean kept their eyes open for more ghosts. "Dean," Bobby said curtly, "upstairs, linen closet — red hex box. It'll be heavy."

"I'm on it," Dean said, taking off up the stairs. He found the closet and tore it apart until he found what he was looking for.

"You know what pisses me off?" He whipped around to see Meg once again. "I was trapped inside my body for _months_ , and you didn't even stop to think that you were looking at anything more than an enemy, Dean! I was awake —!"

Dean aimed and fired his gun. Meg vanished and Dean grabbed the hex box, charging back down the stairs to give it to Bobby. Ellen and Jo burst through the kitchen doors, Ellen breathing harshly and clutching at her chest. "You really need to let me reorganize your damn supplies, hun," she told Bobby as they all unloaded their things within the salt circle.

"Not the time, dear," Bobby said as Ronald and a blonde, presumably Teresa, appeared. Dean and Jo blasted them away just as two little girls appeared. From the way Bobby tensed up, Dean knew they must've been the ones he had failed to save, but thankfully, he remained focused on his job and allowed the others to do theirs. Ellen and Jo shot at the girls as Bobby began to chant.

The windows blew open.

The salt line was demolished by the gust of wind that came through.

"Crap," Dean muttered as the man who had tossed Ellen like a rag doll appeared next to Meg. He, Jo, and Ellen all continued to shoot, but they were running low on ammo too quickly to keep up. The nameless man knocked Dean's gun out of his hands as he was reloading, but thankfully Jo was able to blow him away. Then Teresa appeared and knocked Jo into the wall, sending the desk scraping across the floor until it had her trapped.

"Jo!" Ellen shouted worriedly.

"Protect Bobby!" Jo snapped back as Dean grabbed another gun, only to find it empty. There was an iron poker on the floor, so Dean grabbed it and turned around the slash it through Ronald, Bobby chanting behind him as Ellen shot at the unnamed man. The two little girls appeared on the desk, staring at Bobby just as Meg appeared behind Bobby and shoved her hand into his back.

Bobby cried out, dropping the bowl filled with the various ingredients.

"No!" Dean yelled, springing forward to just barely catch the bowl.

"Dean," Bobby gasped out, "fireplace!"

Dean didn't need to be told twice. He ducked around Meg and threw the bowl right into the flames, which turned blue a split second later. The ghosts all cried out as the brand on their hands burned away, and then they were gone.

The silence was deafening.

Jo began to push at the desk, her mother quickly moving forward to help her as Dean helped Bobby to stand up. "You okay?" he asked.

Bobby nodded, still breathing hard.

It was over.


	9. Nine: The Truth

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Nine: The Truth  
**

 **I was scrolling through my inbox the other day and was surprised to find an old conversation from 4 1/2 years ago where I told someone the entire plot of this story as it had been conceived in my mind at that time. I thought I had forgotten most of my original plan and that I was starting from scratch outside of the broad strokes when I sat down in April to finally get this story going, but I realized that I'm actually still following that 4-year-old plan with only a few small details changed. It was actually a confidence-booster to see that!**

 **We're going to be wrapping up 4.02 with a little bit of conversation taken from 4.01. Also, Sam and Ruby get their quest to find the Trickster underway. Read, review, and enjoy!  
**

* * *

It was a little after four in the morning when Dean startled awake on the couch. Everyone had collapsed into sleep only a handful of hours ago, but Dean felt a rush of adrenaline that had him fully awake in seconds. Why was he up?

"Dean."

Whipping his head around, Dean released a rush of a sigh when he realized the speaker was just the angel Castiel. He stood in the kitchen, staring at Dean with that strange not-blank, yet inscrutable expression.

Dean rose and approached the angel.

"I have released your friends Ellen and Joanna from Sam's order to not search for him," he informed Dean.

"Thanks," Dean said. "That the only reason you're here?"

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"Excellent job with the Witnesses," Castiel finally said.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "You were hip to all of this?" he asked.

Castiel blinked, clearly a little confused by Dean's wording. "I was uh, made aware," he finally said.

"Well," Dean said, "thanks a lot for the angelic assistance. Two of my friends almost got their hearts ripped out!"

"But they didn't."

Seriously? "I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos — you know, Michael Landon. Not dicks."

Castiel's eyes flashed. "Read the Bible," he snapped. "Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier."

"Yeah?" Dean retorted. "Then, why didn't you fight?"

"I'm not here to perch on your shoulder or answer your every prayer," was Castiel's answer. "We had larger concerns."

"Yeah?" Dean said. "Like what? There were people, _good people_ getting torn to _shreds_ down here! I don't even know if my _brother_ was one of those people or not! I can't find him, you can't find him, so what good are you, soldier? Where's _God_ in all this crap?"

Castiel's face turned to stone in and instant, and lightning flashed outside, following by booming thunder that shook the house.

That's when Dean saw it.

Wings.

Lightning flashed again, and Dean found he could see the outline of dark, shadowed wings. Wings that lined up perfectly with Castiel's vessel.

"I am an angel of the Lord," Castiel rumbled. "God is real. He has work for you."

Dean swallowed convulsively.

"Why are you here?" he asked as the lightning stopped and the sight of Castiel's wings faded into mere memory.

"There are… big things afoot," Castiel replied.

"The Apocalypse," Dean guessed.

"Yes." Castiel shifted slightly. "The rising of the witnesses is one of the 66 Seals."

 _"… Azazel needs someone called Lilith for these Seals…"_

Sam's words crossed his mind from their meeting with the priest who had been possessed by Azazel over 30 years ago. That man had been present at the beginning of the journey that led to Sam being fed demon's blood as a baby.

"It was Lilith who did it," he said, turning his wide-eyed gaze to the angel before him. "She cast the spell that rose the witnesses."

"That is correct," Castiel answered. "I am afraid that twenty other Hunters are dead."

"She picked victims that the Hunters couldn't save so that they would barrel right after us," Dean said.

"Lilith has a certain sense of humor."

"But you don't know if Sam is among the dead."

Castiel shook his head after a brief pause. "I do not believe that he is among those whose lives were lost."

Dean pressed his lips together. "Tell me something, Castiel," he said, "why were you guys watching Sam?"

"Because he is the last of his generation with demon's blood in his veins who is alive."

Dean grit his teeth together for a moment. "Did you ever do more than just _watch_ him?"

Castiel's silence was answer enough. "Why?" Dean asked. "We killed Azazel. Why would Lilith choose _now_ to follow whatever his master plan was? Why would she even _want_ to follow that plan? She wants Sam dead!"

"I'm afraid that we do not know what Azazel's original plans were for your brother," Castiel finally said, "but when one of my fellow soldiers observed that Lilith was unable to kill Sam, it raised many questions and gave us cause for concern."

"Wait wait wait," Dean cut in. "Lilith can't kill Sam? When did she try to kill him?"

"When you were taken by the Hellhound."

Did Bobby know about this? Dean ran his hands through his hair, trying to process it all as he turned away. "Did you talk to Sam before he started the blood thing again?"

"No," Castiel answered. "We were not allowed to speak to him until after he made the choice to break his promise to you."

Dean clenched his jaw. "Is my brother in hiding because of you?"

"Dean —"

"Tell me the truth," Dean snarled, rounding back to stare down the angel.

"… Yes."

Dean clenched his fists, anger swelling until it crested and his fist flew, slamming into the angel's face.

That turned out to be a really bad idea.

Dean gasped and stumbled away, hand throbbing so badly he feared it might actually be broken.

"You did excellent work with the Seal," Castiel spoke quietly, completely unaffected by Dean's punch, "but the Seal was still broken. You may think of them as locks on a door, and when the last one falls, Lucifer himself will walk free."

 _"Casey said she believes that Lucifer is the ruler of Hell," Jo tells Dean mere days after her run-in with the demon who believed Sam was supposed to lead Hell, "even though no one's ever seen him, kinda like how so many people believe in God, y'know?"_

"This is insane," Dean groaned as he nursed his hand, carefully stretching it. Not broken. Good. "You angels have been hiding out in Heaven with your precious do-gooder souls, not helping anyone or anything until the ultimate threat comes along? Well, bang-up job so far with the witnesses!"

"We tried," Castiel almost snarled, "and there are other battles, other Seals. Some we'll win, some we'll lose. _This_ one we lost. Our numbers are not unlimited." He stepped closer to Dean, gaze intense. "Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of Heaven should just follow _you_ around?" He shook his head and moved closer. Dean stepped back despite himself. "There's a bigger picture here. You should show me some _respect_. I dragged you out of Hell." He stared hard at Dean, as though to make sure the words sunk in before he flung the final shot: "I can throw you back in."

Castiel vanished, and Dean stumbled to the couch, sinking onto it as he tried to catch his breath and figure out when he had become so breathless. When he could breathe again, he laid back down in hopes of returning to sleep.

As he finally began to drift off, his mind returned to the image of those massive wings in the flashes of lightning, and he realized something:

Castiel's wings were injured.

 _"I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."_

But apparently, it had not been without personal cost to the angel.

Dean's dreams for the remainder of that night were troubling and shadowed with images of wings having their feathers torn out or bent as they drew closer to him.

* * *

"Do you think Sam knows about the Seals?" Ellen asked when morning came and Dean had filled them all in on his moonlit meeting with Castiel. She completely glossed over the idea that Sam could be dead, and Dean was grateful for it.

He considered Ellen's question. "There's a good chance he does," he finally answered. "Ruby _was_ always really good at scrounging up information that checked out despite being an outcast among demons."

"Then Sam's probably going to be doing more than exorcising demons with his mind," Ellen said, sitting up straighter. "He would try to stop as many Seals as he could, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "He would, without a doubt."

"So we track as many of these Seals as possible," Ellen said. "Four sets of eyes should be able to find him."

"It's a good idea," Dean admitted. "Just…" He swallowed and scrubbed at his face. "If you _do_ find him, don't try to approach him. There's no telling what state of mind he's in with Ruby by his side 24/7."

Jo sighed, a look of saddening understanding on her young face. "You'd rather we call you?"

"Yeah," Dean said, nodding and sitting down at the kitchen table, trying not to notice the messy state the room was still in from the witnesses the previous night. "He's completely dropped off the grid, so we have to assume he's likely to be a flight risk by now. Hell, I might only get one shot at bringing him back."

"Makes sense," Ellen said, though she looked saddened by Dean's words. Dean wasn't happy with what he'd just said, but he knew Sam better than anyone, so he knew it was the truth.

Sometimes the truth really sucked.

* * *

The first town Sam and Ruby checked out in their quest to find the Trickster was Harrison, Tennessee. About five people had been subjected to humiliation and even death, but the last incident had been about four days ago. "I don't think he's here anymore," Sam told Ruby, and off they went to the next place.

Their next target was Jonesboro, Louisiana. This placed looked more promising as the last attack had occurred less than 12 hours before they got there, and there had only been three victims thus far. That meant they had a chance of finding Loki, this time.

"You won't believe me," the most recent victim said, twisting her fingers nervously. "No one does."

Sam leaned forward to catch Heather's eyes and gave her a reassuring smile. "I promise I will," he told her. "My specialty happens to be the cases that no one else will believe are really happening."

Heather swallowed hard and nodded. "Okay," she said quietly. "Well, I'm… I'm kind of a bully." The words came out on a despondent exhale. "I would've denied it before now, but the truth is that I'm part of the popular hierarchy at my high school, and there are _rules_ , ones no one talks about, that you have to follow if you wanna stay on top." Heather shrugged. "I wanted to stay on top."

Sam nodded silently. He had never experienced the pressures and benefits of being in the popular crowd thanks to John moving him around so much growing up, but he had been on the receiving end of the so-called _rules_ more than enough.

"There's this girl that everyone picks on," Heather continued. "Geeky, keeps to herself, never wears makeup, rumor had it she was a lesbian — just, she didn't fit in at all. And we were assigned to do a project together, so I thought I'd play a long game and see if the rumors were true. It…" She trailed off, looking uncomfortable. "It worked. A little too well. And I…" Heather turned her attention to her hands. "She tried to commit suicide by drinking bleach. And now, _everything_ tastes like bleach to me. Doesn't matter if someone else drinks it or eats it first. It's horrible! I can't get the taste out and the girl's on suicide watch and I'm here in this —"

Sam said nothing as Heather leaned back on her bed. "Psych ward," she finally finished. "No one can explain what's happening, so they think I'm crazy."

With a sigh, Sam nodded. "You're not crazy," he said. "You're being punished."

Heather lifted her gaze. "Punished? By what? God?"

"No," Sam said quietly, "by something else. When this first started happening, did you see an excess of candy bar wrappers nearby?"

Sam carefully used his powers to get the girl to just answer the questions at this point. When he left, he found he had a pretty good idea of where to try looking for Loki. All the victims were high school students, and as it so happened, the school had recently hired a new security officer.

"I feel ridiculous," Ruby hissed as they marched up the front steps of the school. "How do you wear these cheap 3-pieces so often and _not_ go insane?"

It was quite the change for the demon. She had traded in her leather jacket and boots for conservative heels and a button-up blouse. "What," Sam said, "you don't think you look…?"

He trailed off, taking in Ruby's plain outfit and disgruntled expression. Out of nowhere, a snort and amused chuckle escaped. "Okay," he finally managed, "maybe you look a little —"

"Frumpy?" Ruby cut him off. "Bland? Boring? _Not_ me? I look like Corporate America, or some loser without a sense of fashion who thinks her job is to serve the man and look as _lame_ as possible while doing it!"

As Ruby continued to rant, a full-fledged laugh erupted from Sam at this, and he gave into it. Fully. Utterly. Completely.

The demon stopped talking and turned to face him. "Sam?" she questioned, smiling, yet perplexed.

It took several seconds, but Sam managed to calm down enough to say, "They're just clothes, Ruby."

Ruby sighed. "Ugly clothes," she corrected. Sam nodded, coughed a couple of times, and finally soothed his laughter away into an undercurrent of amusement.

When was the last time Dean had made Sam laugh like that?

 _Dean is in Hell. What gives you the right to laugh?_

The amusement he still felt burst into a fountain of guilt. "Yeah, sorry," Sam said. "Let's go."

Unfortunately, the security officer wasn't the Trickster. Two days and no further incidents later, Sam had to admit defeat for this particular town. "Next time," Ruby promised him.

But the next lead was a dead-end. The one after that was just humans being cruel to each other, and the one after that panned out, as well.

Two months after Dean went to Hell, Sam was beginning to think his leads were all dried out. It was maddening. Would he ever find the demi-god?


	10. Ten: The Girl Who Thought

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Ten: The Girl Who Thought**

 **Do you remember chapter thirteen of the previous story where Danielle's friend Roxy is tortured and used to draw Sam into Gordon Walker's trap? We've just about reached that point in Castiel's POV, to give you a frame of reference regarding time in Heaven versus time on Earth.  
**

 **Updates will start to get a little less frequent starting next month as I gear up for the new school year as a brand new teacher. I'm pretty excited (and anxious), and I know that until I feel settled in, writing probably won't be a high priority. Thank you to everyone who's hung in there so far. I hope you enjoy this next chapter!**

* * *

Castiel soon fell into a routine with his shifts watching Danielle. At Uriel's suggestion, no angels were to watch the soul and her life partner without a companion, and the companions were regularly rotated. Castiel worked with Uriel, Balthazar, Rachel, Hester, and occasionally Sariah herself. Armed with the knowledge that Danielle was somehow able to understand Enochian, Sariah had ordered all angels to keep their silence during their shifts in the soul's presence.

With the other angels by his side, keeping his silence was easy. But over the next ten years, Castiel slowly found himself falling into a new pattern. Every fifth watch, he would ask the other angel he was with to report to Sariah (unless it was Sariah herself), and he would secret himself just out of sight at Danielle and Jared's door. He rarely gleaned new information from these moments he stole, but there were a few instances where he learned something new.

Danielle was working in earnest with the soul called Ash to decipher Enochian.

Ash was working on a way to travel between different Heavens.

Danielle mentioned once, in passing, that she thought the work Ash was doing could be applied to traveling beyond the borders.

Truthfully, Castiel wasn't entirely certain he wanted to know exactly what that last one meant.

The angel wished he could understand why he felt so drawn to Danielle. She was everything a soul shouldn't be, and stranger still, she didn't care at all that she was so different. There were plenty of independent souls in Heaven, but Danielle's persistence in going against the grain truly set her apart from the others.

"You know," she said one day after one of Castiel's fifth shifts, "I really don't understand why the angels act so superior."

"It's 'cuz they're just a bunch of feathered dicks," Jared replied.

"Well, yeah," Danielle said with a bark of laughter, "but it's more than that. Like, I'm seriously starting to wonder if God is even around."

"What makes you say that?" Jared asked.

"It's the attitude around here," was Danielle's answer. "Judeo-Christian religions, to my knowledge, anyway, all agree that humanity was God's greatest creation, and the greatest gift he gave to them was free will."

"Uh-huh," Jared prompted.

"So, if Lucifer was locked away because he refused to bow down to humans, that would mean that every other angel up here chose to bow to us, flawed and small as we are."

There was a pause. "That's not the impression we've been given the last 20-odd years," Jared finally stated.

"You're right," Danielle said, "it isn't. The angels act as though they are superior to us, that they are the adults and us the ignorant children they have to tend to. If God were really still around, wouldn't the angels treat us, treat _me_ better than this?"

Castiel reared back and shut the door.

 _"We are not superior to humanity, Castiel! We were made to serve them, to_ care _for them! And I cannot,_ will _not, be a part of this mistreatment any longer."_

Anna. It had been so, so long since he had last thought of his former commander.

This habitual spying was getting out of hand, planting thoughts and ideas that had no place in Heaven or in Castiel's mind. He had to stop what he was doing and stick to his orders.

It was better for everyone that way.

* * *

The next twenty years passed with little fanfare. Danielle and Jared seemed to settle into a routine of recreating old memories and making up new ones. All the other angels believed that Danielle was finally settling down, and that maybe the routine shifts watching her could be ended.

Castiel wasn't so sure. He hadn't spied on the souls for the last twenty years, keeping his silent promise to not go against his orders in any way, but there were days that passed by between shifts sometimes. Danielle's awareness of the passing of time likely meant that she knew the schedule the angels kept to and was probably going to do the things she shouldn't do when they weren't there. He knew he should speak to Sariah about this, but something held him back.

He couldn't give that something a name, but he listened to it and kept his silence.

"I'm getting really tired of all these silent shifts we have to work," Balthazar hissed in year 42 of Danielle's time in Heaven. "It is not as though we are gossiping cupids who will let slip important secrets to the wrong people."

"I know," Castiel murmured, "but it's for the best."

Danielle turned away from Jared to roll her eyes right at Castiel. Balthazar snorted and called out, "Impressive hearing, little one!"

Danielle stuck up her middle finger and turned back to Jared. "Castiel and Balthazar," she answered his inquiring look.

"It's been awhile since they last talked," Jared said. "Anything interesting?"

"Complaining."

"That's lame."

"Yep."

Their conversation moved on, and the rest of the shift passed without issue.

It was the last shift to do so.

The next eight years brought about some weird discrepancies. Angels began reporting that they were noticing the faint presence of a third soul that would quickly vanish within moments of their arrival. Castiel was growing certain with every passing shift that Jared was no longer capable of being lost in his memories at times as he had been upon Danielle's arrival. Danielle began taking to turning and bowing to the angels when they arrived before returning to her memories or conversations with Jared. Sometimes Danielle would be engrossed with her computer in the bar where Jared relived memories of hanging out with his coworkers, tapping away urgently and not participating in the memories when she was supposed to. The weird thing was that her screen showed nothing but utter gibberish whenever the angels tried to see what she was doing, or complicated math theorems that seemed to baffle the young soul.

One shift, both Castiel and Uriel swore that Danielle was not in her Heaven with Jared when they arrived, but she walked into his current memory after about ten seconds.

"Is it possible that she is traveling between different Heavens?" Uriel asked Sariah later on.

"No," Sariah said definitively. "There's no possible way for a soul to do that without tripping the alarms."

Castiel thought of the man called Ash that Danielle had spoken of to Jared in secret, and wondered if that were truly the case.

Despite his better thinking, Castiel spied on the two souls after his next shift.

"Jared, come take a look at this!" Danielle called out.

"What is it?"

"Ash," Danielle answered, "he says he found information about a prophet who's currently active on Earth, but not like one of those old Mormon leader guys."

"Okay," Jared said slowly, "so what's this prophet doing, then?"

"He's writing a new gospel, and I — Ash and I… _Jared_ , he's writing about the Winchesters, like the stuff they're going through, but a few days before they actually go through it."

"Whoa," Jared said with a low whistle. "That's intense. Any idea what he's writing at the moment?"

"Ash says the prophet's writing…" She trailed off. "Roxy," she whispered.

"What?" Jared sounded alarmed. "Our Roxy? What's going on?"

"She's being tortured," Danielle said, voice strangely blank.

"By what?"

"Not what, a _who_. A Hunter. He's after Sam, and he's using my best friend to lure him in." Danielle let out a sob. "I need… God, I need Ash to see if he can use his research in a more practical way. I've been pushing him to go beyond what we're already doing, but he hasn't been willing to chance it before, and I…" There was the sound of chairs scraping against the floor. "Stay here," Danielle told Jared. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

There was the sound of footsteps, and Castiel was alarmed to realize that Danielle was walking straight toward him. He shut the door and stepped back, waiting to see if she was going to exit.

A minute passed.

Then two.

Castiel cautiously stepped forward and inched the door open. He peered inside.

Jared was sitting at the table containing Danielle's laptop.

He was alone.

Danielle was gone.

And something told Castiel that this wasn't the first time. He shut the door and paced, thinking hard. What should he do? He had yet to report any of the things he had overheard in the past. Why would he do that? He was a soldier, and he had orders that he should follow.

 _"God trusted us with these souls. We should care for them, Castiel, not hoard them into locked rooms for their potential power."_

Anna's words penetrated his mind, and Castiel stalked down the hallway, unable to stay still. Anna had gone crazy, his superiors had insisted right after she tore out her Grace and Fell. They said she had been defective, hadn't been worth keeping around.

And yet…

Castiel paused and allowed the thought to form:

What if she had been right all along? Maybe it was for the best that Castiel allow this soul her freedom. After all, what could a single soul do against the entirety of the Host of Heaven?


	11. Eleven: Wish Upon a Well

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Eleven: Wish Upon a Well**

 **Here we have a retelling of 4.07 "Wishful Thinking", but with Sam and Ruby as Dean and Jo try to figure out what happened. I thought about breaking this chapter into two smaller ones to fit with the length of the other chapters I've written, and then I decided that I'm the author and I can have a chapter twice as long as the others if I please!**

 **I actually meant to post this chapter 2 days ago, but my weekend turned a little hectic and it totally slipped my mind. The school I'm now working at starts its school year tomorrow, and I'm really anxious. And excited. But mostly anxious. I don't know if I can actually be a teacher. I've done lots of training. I spent 5 months working as a substitute teacher. I guess it's one thing to use other people's lesson plans versus creating your own without too much outside help.**

 **Anyway... I hope you enjoy this next chapter!**

* * *

Despite the plan to track as many Seals as possible, Dean couldn't shake the feeling that he should try to look at Sam's movements after Dean's trip downstairs to see if he could figure out what his brother had been doing for the last 11 months. Starting in Pontiac, Illinois, Dean followed a haphazard path that included a string of second-rate motels, crappy diners, and, with increasing regularity, bars and liquor stores. Soon, it was only the booze that Dean could track.

That wasn't good.

Suddenly, starting about a month after Dean went to Hell, Sam was back in motels, and the liquor store purchases tapered off. And then Sam began to move to different cities, different states. It look purposeful.

Had Sam started Hunting again?

Jo offered to go with Dean to check out the places Sam had visited, and Dean took her up on the offer. They first went to Harrison, Tennessee, but their probing questions got them nowhere. It seemed Sam hadn't stayed for more than a day before moving on to Jonesboro, Louisiana. It turned out that Sam had taken the time to speak to one of the victims, a high-schooler named Heather. Dean managed to get in to the psych ward where she was still located, and after interviewing her, he had an idea of what Sam was up to at last.

"He was trying to find the Trickster!" he exclaimed to Jo as soon as they met back up at the motel.

"No," Jo said, eyes wide.

"I wish I was joking," Dean groused, "but it's the only explanation that fits. Just..." He growled and collapsed on the nearest bed. "What the hell was my brother thinking?" he burst out, flinging his arms wide. "After the shit that demi-god pulled, making Sam watch me die over and over and over?! Why would he willingly go after that bastard?"

"Maybe..." Jo trailed off, looking away.

"What?" Dean asked, lowering his arms at last and leaning forward. "Please, Jo, maybe what?"

Jo sighed. "Maybe he thought the Trickster could bring you back."

Dean considered that for a long moment.

"Well," he finally said, "it clearly didn't work."

They moved on the next morning and continued to follow the trail.

* * *

"I've got a case," Ruby said hesitantly, "if you're willing to take a break from Hunting the Trickster."

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"Uh, Concrete, Washington," Ruby said, leaning forward slightly at the table of their latest motel room to read the computer screen in front of her. "There are eyewitness reports of a ghost that's been haunting the showers of a women's health facility."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Kind of a weird place to haunt," he said.

"Yeah," Ruby snorted. "The latest victim is claiming that this ghost-thing threw her down a flight of stairs."

"Okay, that's weird to see in the news," Sam admitted. "And we don't really have any leads on the Trickster right now, so I guess we can check it out."

Two days later, Sam dropped Ruby off at the Holistic Health Center where the incident had occurred and went to meet with the victim who had been pushed down the stairs.

And the case became a little weirder.

"So you said the ghost chased you?" Sam asked, compelling the women to answer honestly.

"Not just that," Candace Armstrong answered. "It knew my name. It — it kept yelling, 'Mrs. Armstrong! Mrs. Armstrong!' And that's when I hit the stairs and fell."

"Wait, you fell? The ghost didn't push you"

"Oh, I don't — I don't know," Candace admitted fretfully as a couple walked into the Chinese restaurant. Sam glanced at them and then frowned, lowering his mental shields to get a better reading on them. The girl was practically plastered to the guy's side, and her emotions were a mixture of obsession and need. _Creepy._

The guy felt both happy and stressed, the stress outweighing the happy feeling quite a bit. _Odd._

"I mean," Candace continued, "I think it did. Maybe."

Sam blinked and refocused his attention. "Did it uh, did it feel like it meant to hurt you, like maybe it was violent?"

"It was a ghost," Candace said as though Sam was an idiot. "I'm _lucky_ to be alive. Anyway, I was at the bottom of the stairs, and that's when it got weird." She chuckled and shook her head. "It helped me up."

 _That's not ghost behavior.  
_

"It helped you up," Sam repeated.

Candace nodded. "Yeah, and it kept saying over and over, 'Please don't tell my mom.'"

"Yeah," Sam said, "that's weird." He wrapped up the conversation, gave the couple another look _(yeah, stress and obsession usually mean something's up)_ and left the restaurant, pulling out his phone to call Ruby.

"Hey," Ruby said without preamble when she answered, "nothing suspicious in the showers at all, but the local newspaper says a man won the lottery, and it was for 168 million dollars."

"Lucky," Sam returned, impressed.

"But that's not all," Ruby told him. "There's a guy across the street claiming that Bigfoot threw him into a tree."

"Bigfoot's not real," Sam said slowly. "D'you know where the guy claimed it happened?"

"Yeah," Ruby said, "I got the deets from the police already. Come and get me."

"On my way," Sam promised, heading for the Impala and driving off.

* * *

"This doesn't seem like a Trickster Hunt," Dean said as he looked over the newspapers surrounding Sam's visit to Concrete. "Just a ghost acting up."

"But look at this," Jo said, showing him a paper from two days later than the one he was looking at. "Man wins the lottery for 168 million dollars? That's kinda insane."

Dean frowned. "Maybe. Let's go out and find the woman who got tossed by the ghost."

* * *

"Sam."

"No, don't say it."

"But Sam —"

"Ruby, I'm warning you!"

"Sam," Ruby said in a too-reasonable tone of voice, "those are the biggest footprints _ever._ It _must_ be Bigfoot."

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Let's see where they lead," he said in defeat. They followed the tracks in silence, and came to an abrupt stop when they realized the destination.

"A liquor store," said Sam. "Seriously?"

Ruby shrugged and stepped through the torn-open back door. "Maybe he's jonesing for some hooch," she suggested with a grin _(that looked too much like Dean's)_. They started looking around the inside of the store. "Got some empty bottles," Ruby called from over by the cash register. "Amaretto and Irish cream." She snorted. "Bigfoot's a girl-drink drunk." Sam shot her a look. "What?" she said defensively. "It's true!"

Sam came over and took a look for himself before moving on. "Okay," he said a moment later as a rounded an aisle. "The porno rack's been uh, ransacked."

Ruby popped up next to him. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at a patch of something dark and fuzzy. Sam hesitated, and then reached out to grab the thing.

"Fur," he said blankly.

"What the hell's going on in this town?" Ruby said with a confused expression. Sam just shook his head and led them both out the front door, psychically locking it behind them. Ruby let out a deep sigh and sat down on a bench near the door.

"Tell me this is weird," Ruby said, "even for you."

Sam sighed and nodded. "Maybe it's a joke?" he suggested. "Like some big-ass mother in a gorilla suit?"

Ruby shook her head. "I don't know." Just then, a little girl on a bike rode past, and a magazine fell from the box attached to it. "Busty Asian Beauties?" Ruby said, nonplussed.

"That's definitely not right," Sam said, rising and following the guilt and remorse the little girl was carrying with her to the back of the store. The girl pulled the box off her bike and dropped it at the back door before leaving. Sam nodded at Ruby to trail the girl and investigated the box.

It was full of porn and alcohol. What was interesting was the "sorry" note the girl had added to the box. Shaking his head with bewilderment, Sam left the liquor store behind him and followed Ruby's demon-signature to where the little girl lived.

"Why is the front door open?" he asked Ruby when he caught up with her.

"Dunno," Ruby answered. "She just walked in and didn't bother shutting it. Weird, right?"

Sam nodded with a frown. Steeling himself, he headed up the stairs and through the front door, reaching out to see who was in the house.

There was the little girl.

There was also something… else. He couldn't figure out how to describe it.

"Hello?" he called out.

"Who's there?" The little girl came into view at the top of the stairs in the entryway.

"Hi," Sam said, "my name's Sam. Uh, you know what? Where are your parents?"

"My mom wished they were in Bali," the girl said, sounding a little sad, "so I think they're in Bali."

Ruby moved up to stand next to Sam. "Hey," she said, "have you seen a really, really furry —?"

"Is he in trouble?" the girl asked at once.

"No," Sam said quickly. "No, no, no. Not at all. We just — we wanted to make sure he was okay."

"He's my teddy bear," the girl told him. "I think he's sick."

"Okay," Ruby said with false brightness, "that's uh… well, we're here…"

"We can help," Sam said. "Yeah, uh —"

"You see…"

"We're uh, teddy bear doctors," Sam quickly settled on as Ruby floundered.

"Really?" Sam nodded. "Can you please take a look at him?"

"Sure!" Ruby said.

"Yeah, sure," Sam said at the same time. The girl ("My name is Audrey") beckoned Sam and Ruby up the stairs and led them to a closed door.

"He's in my bedroom," Audrey informed Sam and Ruby. "He's pretty grumpy." She turned around and knocked on the door. "Teddy?" she called out. "There's some nice doctors here to see you." She opened the door.

The something that Sam had sensed was sitting before a TV. It was a giant, furry, teddy bear easily as tall as Ruby. It swayed unsteadily in its seat, a bottle of booze in one paw. As the door creaked open, it turned to look at Sam.

There was a spike of foreign emotion, followed by a loud, "Close the friggin' door!"

Audrey shut it at once and looked up at Sam, emoting worry and sadness. "See what I mean?" she said.

Sam glanced at a wide-eyed Ruby, both speechless with shock.

What the hell?

* * *

"That's not normal ghost behavior," Jo hissed to Dean as they walked away from their meeting with Candace Armstrong.

"You're right," Dean mused. "It's really not." He shook his head and pulled out his notebook. "Okay, it looks like Sam checked into a motel two streets over. You go to the health center and see if there's anyone who can tell you more about this so-called ghost, and I'll see if there's anyone at the motel who remembers seeing Sam."

"On it."

* * *

"All I ever wanted was a teddy that was big, real, and talked," Audrey told Sam and Ruby, not seeming to notice the bewilderment of the two adults before her. "But now he's sad all the time — not 'ouch' sad, but ouch-in-the-head sad — says weird stuff, and smells like the _bus_." Her nose crinkled with distaste at that last bit.

"Okay," Ruby finally said, "Audrey, how did your teddy become real?"

"I wished for it," Audrey answered.

"You wished for it," Sam repeated.

Audrey nodded. "Yeah, at the wishing well."

Sam frowned and opened the bedroom door again. Teddy was watching the news on the TV, and shaking his head, giant ears flopping from side to side with the motion. "Look at this," he said loudly. "You believe this crap?"

"Not really," Ruby said, peering through the doorway with a skeptical, confused-as-hell expression.

Teddy sighed. "It is a terrible world," he spelled out. "Why am I here?" he demanded, turning his furry face to the ceiling as though yelling at a higher power.

"For tea parties!" Audrey insisted, stamping her little foot for effect.

"Tea parties?" Teddy echoed incredulously. "Is that _all_ there is?"

Sam could hear guns firing on the TV. He asked Audrey to step down the hallway so he and Ruby could "confer on a diagnosis".

"What the _fuck_ are we supposed to do with an oversized, depressed drunk of a _teddy bear_?!" Ruby hissed almost hysterically.

"Okay," Sam said, "first of all, _don't freak out_." He looked back at the desolate, furry boozer. "Second, I don't think this teddy bear is the uh, core problem here."

"So what is?"

Sam thought for a moment. "Audrey," he called out, "you said your mom wished she and your dad were in Bali?"

Audrey walked back over. "Yeah."

"Also at the wishing well?"

Aurdey nodded her head.

"Okay," Sam said, "well, uh, I hate to break this to you, but your bear is sick. He has…"

"Lollipop disease," Ruby piped up.

"Yep," Sam said, nodding in agreement. "It's not uncommon for a bear his size, but it _is_ contagious." He knelt down to Audrey's level. "Is there a grownup nearby you could stay with for a couple of days until your bear is feeling better?"

"Mrs. Hurley lives down the street," Audrey said after a moment of thought.

"Good," Sam said.

"Perfect," Ruby chimed in. "We'd really like it if you could stay there until your bear is better."

"Oh, and last thing," Sam continued. "Where's this wishing well?"

* * *

"I ran into a little girl named Audrey who recognized my photo of Sam," Jo told Dean with excitement. "She said she wished for her teddy to be alive at this wishing well in the local Chinese restaurant."

"Awesome," Dean said. "Was Ruby with him?"

"Audrey said there was a girl with him, yeah. My height, brown hair and eyes. She and Sam told Audrey they were teddy bear doctors."

"Do I wanna know _why_ they said that?"

Jo laughed. "You probably don't. Meet me at the restaurant?"

"Yep, see ya there."

* * *

Sam and Ruby watched a young boy throw a coin into the little wishing well at the Chinese restaurant Sam had been at only an hour earlier. "Think it works?" Sam asked as the boy walked away.

"I don't know," Ruby said thoughtfully, staring into the water. "I mean, I can't think of a better explanation for the oversized teddy bear, but…" She knelt down and stared more deeply into the little pool. "There," she suddenly said, pointing at a small group of coins. "One of the coins is emitting a magical signature. It's strong, too." She rose. "We need to clear out the water so I can get a better look at it."

"I'm on it," Sam said, heading off to find the manager. Within minutes, the water was drained out and Ruby was crouched in the little wishing well, eyeing an old, large coin.

"It's stuck," she told Sam. "Part of the magic is keeping it in place from any touch but the one who threw it in." She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo. "Ready to do some research?"

They checked into a motel, and Sam got to work, comparing the photo Ruby had taken with various ancient coins with magical properties. Ruby, meanwhile, went back to the Health Center, thinking that maybe their so-called ghost was an idiot who made a wish.

"Guy _definitely_ wished to be invisible," Ruby pronounced as she walked through the door. "And that kid we saw tossing in a coin when we got there? I saw him being chased by bullies earlier, but now he's got an attitude and possibly some Hulk-level strength to go with it so he can get some revenge."

Sam sighed. "Well, get this; the wishes are gonna turn bad," he told Ruby. "The coin's Babylonian, and it's cursed. I managed to find some fragments of a legend." He pointed to a picture he'd found online. "The serpent on it is Tiamat, which is the Babylonian god of primordial chaos. It looks like their priests were working some pretty intense black magic."

"So they made it?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "It's to sow the seeds of chaos. Whoever tosses that coin into a wishing well and makes a wish turns it into a real wishing well. Then it starts uh, 'granting wishes to all corners'."

"But the wishes must get twisted," Ruby said. "Girl wishes for a talking bear, she gets fucking nutjob."

"Apparently this coin has turned towns upside down over the centuries, even wiped a few off the map." Sam ran his hands through his hair. "I mean, one person getting their wish can be trouble, but everybody getting their wish?"

"Chaos," Ruby commented.

"Yeah."

"So we've got to find the first wisher," Ruby said, "the one who put the coin in there to begin with." She sighed. "How do we figure that out?"

Sam thought for a long moment. "The local newspaper," he decided, and went to work. Soon, they had a lead in the form of "Wesley Mondale and Ms. Hope Lynn Casey have announced their surprise engagement" from a month earlier. Sam found Wesley's address, and they planned on finding him the next morning to see what he knew.

That night, Sam dreamed of fire and tearing flesh with flayed out screams and maniacal laughter. He woke to Ruby sitting next to him, gently running her fingers through his hair and speaking soft words of comfort. The words sounded hollow to Sam since Ruby had no idea what his dreams were about, and yet they still brought some measure of peace, anyway.

Cold comfort was better than nothing, after all.

* * *

"Manager confirmed that Sam spoke to him," Dean told Jo as soon as she walked into the restaurant. "He drained out all the water, and Sam and Ruby dug around, took a picture of a big ol' coin, and then left."

Jo frowned. "Maybe there was a magic coin that was making people's wishes come true. Like, the ghost was actually a guy who wished to be invisible."

Dean nodded. "Question is, who dropped the coin in?"

"Maybe we should find the first weird incident in the papers?" Jo suggested.

"Yeah," Dean said, "good idea."

* * *

Wesley (or Wes, as he insisted on being called) turned out to be one half the kissing-obsessed couple Sam had noticed the day before when interviewing Candace Armstrong. The obsession and need he had read from the girl, Hope, now made sense. "I wished that she would love me more than anything," Wes confessed.

Sam groaned and leaned back in his chair. "D'you wanna know what her emotional state feels like?" he asked. "She's filled with obsession and _need_ , Wes. I can't read an actual _ounce_ of happiness or love in her."

"You read emotions?" Wes said with wide eyes.

"That and a lot more," Sam answered. "Alright, everybody get in the car. We're taking you back to that restaurant to _remove_ that coin. The town is beginning to descend into chaos, Wes, and all because of your coin and your wish."

They lost Ruby halfway there so she could try and talk down the little boy who had wished for Hulk-strength so he could hurt his former tormentors. Once at the restaurant, Sam had to stop Hope from making a wish of her own when they got to the Chinese restaurant, but he managed to get Wes to pull out the Babylonian coin.

"Hope?" Wes pleaded.

Hope looked at him with a blank expression, her emotions reading confusion, and said, "Do I know you?"

She walked away. Sam felt a pang of sadness for the ache he sensed in Wes's heart, but he told Wes, "Love can't be built on wishes and lies."

"I know," Wes replied quietly. "I know."

* * *

"Sam, yeah, that's him," Wes confirmed quietly after looking at Dean's picture of his brother. "He tracked me down and figured out that I'd dropped a Babylonian coin in the wishing well. It granted wishes, but they all eventually turned bad."

"What did you wish for?" Jo asked with a kind expression, clearly wanting Wes to give the answer she and Dean expected from the announcement in the paper from a month before Sam showed up.

Wes gave a small half-smile for a moment. "I wished that this girl named Hope would love me."

"And did she?" asked Dean.

"No," Wes said. "Well, yeah, but it was more like obsession than it was real love. I just... I'd loved her forever, but she never even noticed that I existed, so I decided that I'd had enough and made the wish."

"How did Sam stop the coin's magic?"

"I was the only one who could remove the coin," Wes answered. "Sam said the coin would destroy the town if I didn't remove it, told me that he could feel Hope's emotions, and that it wasn't real love she was feeling for me. I uh, I guess I knew that already, but hearing Sam say it, well..." He trailed off and shrugged. "When we got to the restaurant, Hope revealed that she was carrying a penny and she tried to wish that Sam would be killed on the spot to stop me from ending the coin's power. Sam stopped her, I grabbed the coin, and then..." He sighed. "It was over, and Hope forgot who I was, what I wished for, all of it."

"You can't wish for love," Jo said, "it's all a lie like that."

Wes nodded. "That's pretty much what Sam said. He and that girl with him, Ruby, they left pretty much right after that. Ruby promised to destroy the coin so it'd never hurt anyone else again, and uh, that was it."

* * *

"Melting down the coin dispersed the magic in it," Ruby informed Sam over the phone. She had collected the coin after helping kid Hulk prove he wasn't worth messing with to his former bullies, and had promised to make sure the coin's days of causing chaos were over forever. "I'll be back soon."

"Great. Thanks, Ruby." Sam ended his phone call and settled down before his computer. This Hunt had been interesting, but the Trickster was still out there, somewhere, causing mayhem with his incredible powers. Sam was going to find him and get Dean back.

* * *

Dean sat on his motel bed, staring at his photo of Sam when Jo came out of the bathroom. "Hey," she said softly, sitting next to him. "We're gonna find him. I know Mom and Bobby are doing everything they can to find more Seals, especially after Castiel lifted Sam's order on us."

"I know we will," Dean said. "It's just... this Hunt, it sounds like Sam and Ruby were a great team together."

Jo raised her eyebrows. "You think Sam prefers a demon as his Hunting partner?"

"No, that's not it," Dean said quickly. "It's... He just sounds like he's busy being all _Sam_ , the determination, the focus... I told him to remember what Dad and I had taught him before I died." He looked up at Jo. "I think he remembered being taught to be reckless, to put the Hunt first, to lock away all the pain and ignore it." He swallowed hard. "What if my little brother is really dead in a ditch somewhere because he couldn't slow down and put himself first?"

"He isn't," Jo said at once. "You both had a rough childhood, but Sam is _strong_ , Dean. I know he's still out there, we _know_ he was still alive ten days ago. Don't you give up on me now, Dean Winchester." She grabbed Dean's shoulders and shook them a little. "Sam needs you. We _all_ do." She yanked him forward into a tight hug. "Don't give up," she whispered.

Dean clung to Jo's shoulders, her determination, and to her faith.


	12. Twelve: Fray and Snap

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Twelve: Fray and Snap**

 **Two weeks of teaching down, and I feel as though I'm fairly drowning! I've got a great team of teachers to fall back on, but man, it's still really hard. Anyway, I haven't had much time or energy to write, but I love this chapter so much that I wanted to share it with you guys sooner rather than later. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **Lyrics by Kansas. You'll know 'em when you see 'em. Also a brief mention of 04.04 "Metamorphosis".  
**

* * *

Three months.

 _Three fucking months._

Sam and Ruby had chased the Trickster all over the continent, and all they had to show for it were 18 dead-ends, a surprise meet up with another Hunter who going after a Rugaru that hadn't transformed yet, and a witch who was getting revenge on those who had wronged her growing up.

Three months of horrible nightmares, three months of Dean _in Hell_ , and Sam's sanity was wearing severely thin at the edges. Some nights it was easier to drink a whole bottle of whiskey in one shot than it was to deal with his constant failure.

After dead-end number 19, Sam lost it.

He was driving away from Richfield, Utah, and suddenly anger welled up inside him and became a storm he could no longer control. Sam barely managed to pull over the Impala to the side of the road before he was up and out, raging at the injustice of it all, fists slamming against the hood of Dean's baby, but Dean was dead, gone forever, and the one thing Sam thought could bring him back continued to elude him like it fucking _knew_ he was after it, and it wasn't fair, none of this was fair, Dean never should've sold his soul for Sam's life because he wasn't _worth_ it —

"Sam!" Ruby was suddenly in his space. "Stop it! Please, this isn't _helping_ anything!"

Before Sam could process what he was doing, he had punched Ruby across the face, only to be slammed against the side of the Impala by Ruby's demonic powers a moment later. He collided with the hard, unforgiving metal with a grunt and stayed there for a moment out of pure shock. The last thing Ruby ever liked doing was using the abilities granted to her as a demon, instead relying on her fists, the knife, or the magical abilities she had learned as a witch before going to Hell.

Just as Sam started to fight back with his own powers, Ruby was pushing against his chest with her hands, keeping him firmly in place and reminding him just how strong demons were compared to humans. "Listen to me!" Ruby shouted at him, dark eyes wide and sad. "You — _we're_ doing _everything_ we can! The hex bags should have been working, they should have _shielded_ our presence from this demi-god. We've chased more than enough leads that one of them should've been him, and the fact that we've got nothing…" She trailed off, brown eyes locked with Sam's. "I don't think this Trickster is a demi-god," she finally finished. "I think he's something else _pretending_ to be a demi-god. There's no way we shouldn't have caught him by now."

Sam stared at Ruby, chest heaving from his outburst. "So what do we do?" he forced himself to ask, hating the unsteady wobble of his voice.

Ruby shook her head, smoothing her hands down his shirt and not looking at him. "I don't know," she answered quietly. "I just — I'm so used to either having the answers or at least knowing where to _look_ to find answers, and I have nothing for you."

When a tear splashed on Ruby's wrist, it took Sam a moment to realize it came from him. Within seconds, a sob escaped him, followed by another and another until he was drowning under the wave of despair that was crashing over him. Sam sank to the ground, Ruby following him, fingers running through the hair at the base of his skull as their bodies tangled together in the dust and weeds along the side of the road.

John's death had wounded Sam deeply.

He was certain that Dean's had all but shattered his heart.

Sam gave into his tears, safely ensconced in Ruby's embrace until he had nothing left to give to his sorrow. Eventually, he began to come back to himself and realized that Ruby was softly singing a song by Kansas, voice lilting and a little unsteady, but gentle like the mothers on TV who sang their children to sleep.

" _Carry on my wayward son,_  
 _There'll peace when you are done._  
 _Lay your weary head to rest._  
 _Don't you cry no more."_

* * *

Ruby took over driving, and Sam gave into his exhaustion in the backseat, waking up in the middle of the night to find Ruby parked in a clearing miles away from civilization. He sat up and saw that Ruby was sitting on the hood of the car, staring up at the star-lit sky.

"There's nothing like this in Hell," Ruby said when Sam slowly exited the Impala. "Really, you spend long enough in the Pit, and you forget what the surface world is even like. It's just… cloudy skies filled with smoke and ash and lightning, and you're never _clean_. Your reality down there is faded, all colors muted except for the colors of fire and blood." She sighed as Sam eased onto the hood next to her. "This world is so _vibrant_ ," she continued. "A million different colors and a million _billion_ different sounds, so many people who think and feel in so many different ways, and then you have _nature_ , this amazing place that's greens and blues and browns, warmth and coolness in the same breath, and then the sunsets?" She shook her head, awe pouring out from her emotions in a near-torrent. "Brilliant lightshows of pinks and purples and golds! And at night…" She smiled and looked up at the stars above them.

"Who knew that numberless glowing lights in a sea of darkness could be so breathtaking?" she whispered. Sam smiled.

"Sometimes… Dean and I would park in a clearing like this and just stare up at the stars for hours." Sam swallowed and licked his lips, feeling wrung out and dried up. Ruby silently handed him a bottle of water, and he gratefully took a long drink from it. "The days were always so busy, and sitting out here was like, a way to unwind from everything, to just remember that in the end, it was the two of us in this incredible world. We never had to talk out here, it was just…" He trailed off and smiled. "I think that it was everything I ever wanted Heaven to be."

"Is it okay that we're here like this?" Ruby asked him. "I could always go find a motel instead if this is too much for you."

Sam shook his head. "It's… it's fine," he finally settled on, surprised that he meant it. "I think that I needed this tonight. Thank you."

Ruby smiled, nodded, and turned her gaze skyward again.

The warm Colorado night was the first one in a long time where Sam knew a measure of peace.

* * *

Dean slouched on the bed in his current motel room, staring absently at his things. Two duffle bags and his favorite gun were pretty much all that remained from his time before Hell. It hurt more than Dean wanted to admit.

All in all, Sam had tracked down 19 different leads on the Trickster, and it seemed every last one had panned out because Sam's driving suddenly turned aimless after Richfield, Utah. Jo had returned to Bobby's house to run phones for Bobby's old friend Rufus while Bobby and Ellen looked at a possible Seal. So for now, Dean was on his own.

He forced himself to lie down, to try and sleep. He was pretty exhausted from the nightmares and all-nighters he forced on himself, which meant he wasn't very surprised when he was awake barely an hour later from yet _another_ nightmare.

He _was_ surprised to see Castiel standing at the foot of his bed.

"Cas — Castiel?" he mumbled, scrubbing at his face. "Wos goin' on?"

"You have to stop it," Castiel said, moving forward.

"Stop what?" Dean asked, confused. Did he mean that the Apocalypse was starting _right now_ or was it something else?

It seemed, however, that Castiel was done talking. Instead, he pressed two fingers to Dean's forehead, and the world exploded in a flash of light.


	13. Thirteen: The Past Revealed

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Thirteen: The Past Revealed**

 **Teaching is so wonderful, but so exhausting! It takes balance to do well with teaching, being a mom, and being a wife. Don't even get me started on writing! I knew updates would slow down, but it's sometimes a few days between sit downs to write more of this story. In addition to being a first-year teacher, I'm also expected to use many different programs, lots of little things that all require time and attention, and it adds up to a huge pile of stuff to figure out. I guess that's part of the deal with teaching at a charter school vs public school. Public has more freedom compared to what I'm experiencing so far. I still love my job, but I'm also so _tired_.**

 **Anyway, quite a bit of dialogue in this chapter came from episode 4.03 "In the Beginning". It doesn't follow exactly the same, but most of it follows the episode because I felt that little would change even with Dean's small advantage of knowing that a Hunter led Azazel to Mary and John. There is a small fact in this chapter that I pulled from 8.12 "As Times Goes By" regarding his father, but no spoilers from that episode. Also, if you'll remember, in chapter one of "Demon Blood", Azazel said that the person who helped him sets his sights on John and Mary was Dean. By the end of the story, everyone thought it was _some Hunter_. I revealed in chapter 26 of "Demon's Year" that the angels were responsible for the fact that no one besides Sam and Ruby knows that it was Dean who was the Hunter in Lawrence when it all went down. Well, the truth will out, as they say. Enjoy!**

* * *

"Hey! Hey, mister! You can't sleep there!"

Dean forced his eyes open, seeing nothing but white for a few seconds before the world came into focus and he realized he was lying down on a bench on a street he didn't recognize, covered in newspaper like a street bum. "The hell?" he muttered, forcing himself to sit up.

"C'mon, mister, no sleepin' on public property." Dean turned to see it was a cop.

"Right," Dean said, trying to focus. "Sorry." He fumbled his way to his feet and went in search of a diner, suddenly very hungry and still a little dizzy. What the hell was going on?

Staggering into the first diner he came across, he slumped onto a barstool.

"Wild night?" the guy next to him asked.

Dean glanced over at the guy. He looked kinda familiar, but damned if Dean could place him. "I have no idea," he sighed. "Whatever I did, it sure left behind an impression."

The guy laughed.

"Where am I?" Dean asked after a moment.

The man frowned. "Lawrence, Kansas. You musta had a bad night."

"Yeah," Dean said faintly. "Bad." He pulled out his cell phone, but there was no reception. "Where can I decent reception around here?"

The man looked at Dean's phone and laughed again. "The USS Enterprise?" he suggested.

Ha, ha.

"Hey, can I get a cup of coffee over here?" the man called out to the guy behind the bar. Dean looked up at the guy and took in his out-of-date wardrobe.

"Dude," he said, "what's with the outfit? Sonny and Cher broke up, you know."

"Sonny and Cher broke up?" said the man next to Dean, and the guy behind the counter looked just as confused.

Something wasn't right. Dean took a look around, realizing that pretty much everyone around him dressed quite differently than him. Then he spotted a newspaper.

The date said April 30, 1973, almost ten years before Sam was born.

"Hey, Winchester!"

Dean immediately turned to see a guy he didn't know. A moment later his insides froze when said stranger approached not Dean, but the man sitting next to him.

"John, I didn't know you were back from Vietnam!"

John Winchester.

Holy shit.

The man sitting next to him was his own _father_.

"Almost six months now," John was saying as Dean tried to figure out what the hell was going on. "You're behind on the times, my friend."

The man laughed and clapped John's shoulder. "Hey, listen, I just got an opening at my shop downtown. You interested?"

"I'll have to think about it," John replied, and Dean found himself fascinated by how relaxed and easy-going his father seemed. "I've got a pretty decent job right now."

"You come talk to me when you've thought about it, then," the guy said. "You got a lot of potential." He headed out of the diner, and John turned his attention to Dean.

"Do I know you?" he asked after a moment.

Dean swallowed hard and forced himself to shake his head. "Right," John said, rising from his barstool, "well, take it easy." He left the diner.

It took a few seconds before Dean was able to make himself stand up to try and tail his father, but the moment he stepped outside, Castiel was walking right alongside him.

"Crap," Dean started and took a heaving breath. "Is this all real?"

"Yes," Castiel said, "it is."

Dean dragged both hands down his face. "What," he forced out, "the angels got their hands on some Deloreans? What the hell is goin' on here?"

"Time is actually fluid," Castiel answered, "and we angels are capable of bending it, with difficulty, of course. It _is_ possible."

Dean tried to stay calm. "Why am I here?"

"I told you," Castiel answered, "you have to stop it." And then he was gone.

"Oh, come on," Dean groaned, scrubbing at his face. "You suddenly allergic to straight answers?"

Well, he knew the date, and he was pretty sure he knew what was coming in the next couple of days, but why him? Why had they brought him back?

 _"Some Hunter turns up out of nowhere, interrupting me in the middle of one of my deals."_ Azazel's words from too long ago suddenly echoed in his mind. _"So, I jumped ship and chose to take Grandpa Samuel's meat suit, which led to drawing my attention to John Winchester, the mechanic who served in the Marines and Mary Campbell, the daughter of Hunter Samuel Campbell. I thought that I must have found the best of my potential children in this particular couple, so I broke John's neck and told Mary I could bring him back if she made a simple deal to allow me access to her home in ten years. She made the deal, I stabbed Gramps and twisted Grandma's neck, and now I think I've found the one who'll carry out my plans."_

Some Hunter, huh? Well, Dean knew Grandpa and Mom were Hunters themselves, so maybe he was here to stop the Deal from happening?

It wasn't much, but it was pretty much all that Dean had to go on. For now, however, he was going to track John down again and hope that he led him straight to Mary. He had a lot of work cut out for him and probably nowhere near enough time to accomplish anything.

Dean's head was spinning, but he forced himself to focus and started down the street.

* * *

John was at a car dealership, looking hard at buying a Volkswagon van the color of _puke._ Seriously? _  
_

The Impala sat a few feet away. _My baby,_ Dean thought to himself, striding forward and looking her over. She was looking a tad dusty and unloved, but Dean knew his car.

As he watched John bargain for the van, he found he barely recognized the personality of the man before him. Despite being abandoned by his father as a child and serving in a gruesome, unnecessary war, he was a good man in great spirits, genial and just too happy.

It was almost sacred to Dean, this rare sight of his father.

"You don't wanna buy that car," he called out when the salesman walked away to draw up the papers for the van.

"Excuse me?" John turned to Dean. "Are you following me?"

"No," Dean said quickly, "no, I was… just passing by. I never got to thank you for that cup of coffee this morning. I was a little out of it."

"More than a little," John chuckled.

Dean grinned. "Let me repay the favor," he offered, patting the hood of Baby. "This is the one you want."

"Oh yeah?" John asked with raised eyebrows. "You uh, you know something about cars?"

Dean smiled and nodded, thinking back on days lost under the hood of his baby with his father's voice instructing him, teaching him, molding him into the person he was. "Yeah… yeah, my dad taught me everything I know." He turned to look at the Impala. "And this? This is a great car." He opened the hood of the Impala and beckoned John closer.

He was pleased when his father joined him, but kept his happiness under lockdown. "327 four barrel, 275 horses. A little TLC and this thing is cherry."

John looked at the engine and nodded. "You know," he said, "you're right."

Dean nodded over at the ugly van. "Then why are you getting that thing?"

"I uh, I kinda promised someone I would," John admitted with a faint blush. Maybe that someone was Mary. Dean sure hoped so.

"Over a '67 Chevy?" he asked, making sure his voice contained epic amounts of incredulity. "I mean, come on, this is the car of a _lifetime_. Trust me, this thing's still gonna be badass when it's 40."

He watched with bated breath as John considered for a long moment. Then he held out his hand. "John Winchester," he introduced himself.

Dean grinned and took the hand, shaking it firmly just as John had taught him to do. "Dean Van Halen," he returned. "And uh, thank you. I was in pretty rough shape this morning, huh?"

"No kidding," John laughed.

"Listen, I'm gonna head off now," Dean said, "but it was great to meet you. Take care of yourself."

"Yeah, you too," John said as the salesman came back outside.

"So?" the salesman asked as Dean walked away. He glanced over his shoulder and was pleased to see his father point to Baby.

"I'll take this one."

* * *

Dean hot-wired a car a few streets away that looked like it hadn't been used in a while and carefully tailed John for the rest of the day. Night was beginning to show itself when John pulled up at a house near the edge of town. A young blonde woman ran out, and Dean rolled down his window when it became apparent she was going to talk to John before getting inside.

"What happened to the van?" she was asking.

"Mary, this is better than the van!" John exclaimed. "This has got a 327, a four barrel carburetor."

 _That's my mom,_ Dean thought. They _were_ together, just like John had told him before making the Deal that took him away from Dean and Sam. Hadn't John said that the night of May 2 found him and Mary deciding to elope? How long had they been together? Where were Mary's parents?

There were too many questions and not enough answers. Dean followed his parents to a diner, and watched silently as they went inside for milkshakes. "Sammy," Dean breathed to himself, "wherever you are, Mom is a babe." He grimaced. "I'm going to Hell. Again."

He couldn't hear what they were talking about, but suddenly Mary got up and headed back for the restroom. Dean's eyes went wide when he saw John pull out a small red box and open it to reveal a ring.

John was definitely ready to propose to Mary.

"Why are you following us?"

Oh, yeah. Mary was _definitely_ a Hunter. Dean spun around only to get kneed in the stomach and then thrown against a metal container that stood alongside the diner. He managed to dodge a punch and tried to play dumb. "Are you crazy?" he asked.

"You've been trailing us since my house," Mary snarled at him, throwing another punch that Dean grabbed and flung away so he could reach out and get a firm grip on her arms.

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Really," Mary said snidely. She broke free of Dean's hold and went after him again. He managed to pin her to the wall.

"Look, I'm a Hunter!" Dean finally decided to say. "I thought something was after your boyfriend."

Mary stopped struggling and Dean stepped back, taking in the distrust written all over her. "There's nothing after John," she said firmly. "I would've known if there was."

"Probably," Dean said, "but I had to make sure."

Mary eyed him. "Come to my house after I go home," she said. "I still don't know if I can trust you, but if anyone can figure it out, it's my dad."

"Done," Dean said.

* * *

"So," Samuel began, leaning back in his chair, "you're a Hunter? Well, tell me something, mister hunter, you kill vampires with wooden stakes or silver?"

"Neither," Dean snorted, "you cut their heads off." He stared down his grandfather. "So did I pass your test?"

"Yep," Samuel answered. "Now get outta my house."

"Dad!" Mary exclaimed.

"I don't trust other Hunters," Samuel retorted, "don't want their help, don't want them around my family." He glared at Dean.

How funny was it that John had ended up with a very similar attitude?

"Knock it off, Samuel," called Deanna from the next room as she set the dinner table.

"He's a Hunter!" Samuel said, shooting Dean's grandmother an annoyed look.

"Who passed your little pop quiz," Deanna rebuked him, striding into the room, "and now I'm inviting him to dinner." She turned to Dean. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving," Dean admitted with a small grin. He was gonna get a chance to try out his grandmother's cooking! Mary had been a great cook, and he hoped she had learned her skill from her mom like he had wanted to learn from his.

"Good," Deanna said with a grin that clearly said 'that settles it'. "I'm Deanna, you've met my husband Samuel, now wash up."

"Yes, ma'am," Dean replied with gusto. He washed up as instructed, and then ate a very delicious dinner with his family. Not that they knew they were his family, of course. He was certain he needed to be careful about who he was.

Talking with Samuel revealed that there was demon activity nearby. Dean was certain that it had to be Azazel, and was quietly thankful that he'd passed out on his bed back in 2009 with his jacket on and John's Hunting journal tucked inside. If this was indeed the Hunt he thought it was, then there was info inside that would prove useful.

He had to wonder, though: why had Sam left John's journal behind when he had abandoned the Impala in Utah?

First though, he needed to check out Samuel's lead at Whitshire Farm.

Aaaaand avoid all talk of him marrying his own mother.

 _Buuh._ Dean shuddered as he left.

* * *

Samuel showed up at the farm the next day, dressed in the same religious getup that Dean was wearing while making small talk with Beth Whitshire. "Father," he said stiffly when Dean opened the door, "I see you beat me here."

Dean contained his grin as Beth stepped up next to him. "The Lord is funny that way," he replied. "Beth Whitshire, this is my associate, our senior, _senior_ priest, Father Cheney." _Dick,_ he thought with relish. He told Samuel how Beth said that her husband had been perfectly normal before his death and then left the porch to go see what Mary was up to. He was a tad surprised that Samuel had brought his daughter with him, but then Mary revealed a new clue.

"Charlie, would you like to tell the Father what you told me?" she said to Mr. Whitshire's son.

Charlie took a deep breath as he nodded. "Dad drank sometimes," he said. "Sometimes he got rough with Mom."

"And that's when the stranger came?" Mary prompted.

Charlie nodded again. "I just thought he was some Bible thumper, like you all. He showed up about a week ago."

"Saying what?" Dean asked.

"Did I want the beatings to stop? I just thought he was crazy, I didn't think…" He trailed off and looked away. "And the next thing I know, Dad's dead." He met Dean's eyes. "Am I going to jail?"

"You didn't do this, Charlie," Mary said at once, but Dean was certain there was something Charlie wasn't saying.

"Did the stranger want something in return?" he asked. Mary shot him a look.

"He didn't want anything," Charlie said, looking a little bewildered.

"Come on, Chuck," Dean insisted, "he wasn't just handing out freebies now, was he?"

Charlie got real quiet for a long moment. "He did say something about comin' a callin' ten years from now. Maybe he'd want something then."

Ten years. "Something like what?" Dean asked, stomach churning.

"I don't know, okay? Look, I told you he was nuts."

Mary grabbed Dean's arm and excused them. "What are you thinking?" she asked him seriously when they were several feet away.

"I'm thinking," Dean said, "that he just pimped his soul to a demon and doesn't even know it." _To Azazel,_ he thought darkly. But it didn't fit the pattern Sam had written up in John's journal. His list was comprised of women, _mothers_ who had unwittingly sold away their future children's safety. What was going on?

He questioned Charlie further, asking about the man's appearance and getting the fact that clenched it for him: "his eyes were yellow."

* * *

"I know the demon we're after," he told Samuel when they returned to his home.

"But there's no such thing as a demon with yellow eyes," Samuel insisted. "Only red and black."

"Nope, there are white-eyed ones, too," Dean retorted. "Don't ask how I know." He slammed a map of the area on Samuel's dinner table.

"But —"

"You're in danger," Dean cut him off. "We're _all_ in danger. This demon is a bad fucker, but it can be killed."

"You can't kill demons," Samuel said.

"You can with Samuel Colt's gun. _The_ Colt."

"That bedtime story I told Mary as a kid?"

"It's real," Deanna said sternly, "or did you really not believe that journal of Sam Colt's we have back at the compound?"

"Compound?" Dean asked.

"In Michigan," Deanna replied. "You know where the Colt is?"

"A Hunter named Daniel Elkins has it," Dean told her. He pulled out John's journal and flipped through it to Sam's list.

"What's that?"

"My list of targets the demon went after," Dean said distractedly. "Huh, Sam _did_ write down Whitshire Farm," he muttered to himself. But he added a note to it: _nothing ever came of this Deal because Charlie never married. This always happened with the few men Azazel tried to make Deals with. That's why the key Karena gave us was about finding the women._

"Who's Sam?" asked Deanna.

"My little brother," Dean answered, hating that he'd let that much slip already. "He uh, he worked with our dad to figure out all the places the demon was hitting, and Whitshire is right here on the list. I _knew_ it sounded familiar."

"But that was two days ago," said Samuel. "How is that on their list?"

"My brother is psychic, sees the future," Dean said shortly. "The next person the demon's gonna hit is tomorrow. Liddy Walsh, lives in Haleyville." Sam had added a note to this one, as well: _demon made contact, but it seems that no Deal was ever made because Liddy didn't have a kid in '83 like the other women._ That had to mean that this was the Deal where that other Hunter showed up and led Azazel to Mary. If Dean could get the gun and be back before the other man showed up, he could end this before it could begin!

"That's not to far from here," Deanna said quietly. Dean looked up and saw the look in her eyes.

"Sees the future, huh?" Samuel said skeptically.

"Yeah, of _course_ you think I'm crazy," Dean sighed, slamming the journal shut. "I'm going out to find the Colt so I can end the bastard once and for all." He turned around and left the room.

Mary was sitting in the front room, listening to the radio. Dean hesitated, and decided to talk to her. "I'm shoving off," he told her. "Just wanted to say bye."

"Really?" Mary said in surprise. "So soon?"

"Yeah," Dean said with a small shrug. "Job to do. Hey, I wanted to — to tell you, you know for what it's worth. Um..." He swallowed hard and then rushed out: "It doesn't matter what your Dad thinks, I like that John kid."

Mary smiled. "You do?" she asked, and she seemed more vulnerable in that moment than she had at any time previously.

"Yeah," Dean replied, "yeah, I uh, think you two are meant to be."

Mary's smile turned softer. "Thank you," she said.

Dean knew he should leave, but curiosity got the better of him. "Can I — can I ask what he's like? John, I mean."

"Oh, well, he's sweet, kind. Even after the war, after everything, he still believes in happily-ever-after, you know? He's everything a hunter isn't." She glanced up at Dean. "No offense."

 _"Your mom told me once that she loved how I still believed in happily-ever-after after the Marines, and part of me thought that was how it'd be forever after," John tells Dean as they try to figure out where Azazel took Sam._

"None taken," Dean quickly answered.

Mary scooted a tad closer to where Dean stood. "Can I tell you something?" she asked.

Dean nodded.

"He's gonna ask me to marry him," Mary confided to him. "Tomorrow, I think!"

"Yeah?"

Mary grinned. "Oh, Dad's gonna explode, but I don't care. I'll run away if I have to, I just… I love John, and..."

"And what?" Dean asked quietly.

"I wanna get _out_ ," Mary finally admitted in a rush. "This job, this life, I _hate_ it. I want a family, I wanna be safe." She shook her head and stared hard at Dean. "You know the worst thing I can think of? The very worst thing? Is for my children to be raised into this like I was."

Oh, god. Dean's breath caught. That was why she had never told John what her family did. It was so much like how Sam had felt for so long, why he never told Jessica what his life had been like growing up…

"No," Mary continued, oblivious to Dean's inner turmoil, "I won't let it happen."

Dean blinked back tears. "Yeah..." he trailed off, aching to tell her the truth, but knowing he shouldn't.

Mary leaned forward. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah," Dean said at once "no, I'm — I'm fine. Hey, uh, Mary, can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"Even if this sounds really weird, will you promise me that you will remember?"

Mary frowned. "Okay," she said.

"On November 2nd, 1983, don't get out of bed. No matter what you hear, or what you see. Promise me you won't get out of bed."

Mary gazed up at Dean, eyes searching as though she needed to figure out if he was crazy or serious. Finally, she said, "Okay."

A tear ran down Dean's face before he could stop it. He smiled at Mary and left as quickly as possible.

He had to change his and Sam's future. That's what Castiel had meant, right?

* * *

Dean drove his stolen car to Daniel Elkins' home in Colorado, convinced him to allow him to borrow the Colt, and tore his way back to Kansas with nothing but coffee in his system to keep him going. He realized with a pang that it was now Sam's birthday, though ten years too early.

He suddenly recalled a memory from the day Mary had gone into labor with Sam. Dean had been playing in the backyard of their home while his mother watched him, and she had suddenly bent over and gasped, clutching at her swollen belly.

 _"Mommy?" Dean asks, dropping his toy and hurrying over to her. "Are you okay?"_

 _"Yeah," Mary says, smiling brightly, before crying and bending over. "Oh, no, it's too soon," she whispers, turning around and hobbling inside. Dean follows her, confused._

 _"Mommy?" he asks again as his mother makes her way to the calendar in the kitchen. She stares at the date, breathing hard, skin of her hands white where they are pressed against her pregnant belly. "It's been ten years," she whispers. "Ten years tomorrow." She shakes her head, tears running down her face. "What have I done?"_

She knew. She knew, and she never told John.

Dean pressed harder on the pedal. He needed to get to Liddy Walsh's home as quickly as possible.

Azazel was going to die.

* * *

Dean knew he was too late the moment he burst through the door and saw Azazel in the body of a middle-aged man with Mary held in front of him like a shield.

"Let her go!" he demanded, ignoring Samuel who was strewn on the floor looking a little dazed and angry.

"Where'd you get that gun?" Azazel asked, eyes narrowed at Dean. He cocked the Colt and gave Mary a short nod, thankful now more than ever that she was raised a Hunter. The blonde broke the demon's hold, but Azazel immediately abandoned his host and shot out through a vent in the wall in a stream of black smoke.

"Damn," Dean growled, safely storing the Colt away. "What happened?"

And Mary explained that her father decided it was worth checking out Dean's lead, that they'd burst in expecting an easy exorcism, that Azazel _liked_ Mary. Dean's heart pounded as he grabbed Mary's arm and guided her outside, Samuel promising to check on terrified Liddy Walsh.

"Mary," Dean said when they were out on the front porch of Liddy's home, "what else did Azazel say to you?"

"I told you," Mary answered with wide eyes, "just that he liked me." She stared up at Dean. "What did he mean by that?"

Dean pressed his lips together. _I'm the Hunter that Azazel talked about in the cabin,_ he thought angrily. _I thought some other player was gonna show up, but instead I'm playing out events exactly as that fucking demon said they would._

Samuel stepped through the front door, assuring them both that Liddy was fine and telling Dean that he did a "nice job".

"I missed the shot," Dean replied.

"Take the compliment, son," Samuel chuckled. "I'm saying that I was wrong about you."

Okay, that wasn't so bad, but then Dean remembered the next part of the story. Azazel had said that he "jumped ship" and took Grandpa Samuel's meatsuit. He looked at the older man. Had it already happened?

There was only one way to find out.

"We need to talk," Dean told him quietly as Mary fumed by Samuel's car. "Alone."

* * *

Mary ran off as soon as Samuel's car parked in the front driveway of his home, and Dean figured she was probably off to find John. He followed his grandfather inside, one hand tucked in his jacket.

"Okay," Samuel said once they reached the dining room, "what'd you want to talk about?"

Dean searched the Hunter's eyes. Was he already possessed? Not for the first time, Dean wished desperately that his brother was by his side to help him figure this whole thing out, to use his abilities to sense if Samuel was himself, or if he was possessed.

However, Dean did remember that holy water didn't work on Azazel, which could mean that saying "Christo" didn't work, either.

There was only one thing to do, then.

Dean pulled out the Colt and pointed it at Samuel.

"What are you doing?" Samuel asked at once, raising his hands defensively.

"Here's the thing," Dean said in response. "I don't know you very well, but what I've seen so far tells me that you're not the kind to hand out compliments lightly, especially when the big bad gets away."

"You kept Mary safe," Samuel replied. "I can't thank you for saving my daughter's life?"

"But I haven't, not really," Dean said, "not so long as that demon is still out there. Since he likes Mary, he isn't gonna possess her. And since I've got a keep-out tattoo, he ain't gonna jump ship to me. But you? I lost track of you for a minute, more than long enough for the demon to come back and take over."

"So throw some holy water on me," Samuel said, "or salt."

"That don't work on this one," Dean told him. "He possessed a priest in Maryland and killed a convent of nuns without breakin' a sweat!"

"Who are you?" Samuel demanded. "How is it that you know so much about this yellow-eyed demon when not a single one of my contacts or extended family have a clue what's going on right now?"

"Because I'm Mary's son and Azazel's gonna kill her in ten year's time if I don't find and kill the damn bastard now!" Dean shouted without thinking.

There was a long moment of silence as Samuel stared at Dean, hands still outstretched in defense. "Mary's son," he said blankly.

"Dean Winchester," Dean said, because it was out now, wasn't it? "I'm the son of John and Mary Winchester, and Azazel's gonna find Mary and make a Deal with her _tonight._ " He cocked the gun and decided to take a chance. "Christo."

The gun was torn from Dean's hand right as Samuel's eyes flashed yellow. Dean felt a force like a million hands pushing against him, and he slammed into the nearest wall.

"Well now," Azazel said from Samuel's mouth with an unnatural grin, "isn't this an interesting situation we find ourselves in?"

Dean tried to move, but he knew it was no use.

"So, if you're the son of that feisty blonde and this _John_ , then that means you took a little time-travel trip to get here. Angels, maybe? I thought something smelled off about this area." Azazel chuckled. "It's almost like the angels _wanted_ you to be here."

No. That couldn't be it.

"So, futureboy," Azazel continued, eyeing the Colt that he now held in his hand, "if you came all this way to see me for killin' your mommy, does that make you one of my psychic kids?"

He drew close and actually _sniffed_ at Dean. Dean grimaced in discomfort.

"No, not you," Azazel breathed. "Maybe you got a sis, or a bro." Dean's jaw clenched, and the yellow eyes sparked with acknowledgement of his reaction, small thought it was. "That's terrific, means it all worked out." He drew back with a grin. "After all, it's why I'm here."

"To choose the perfect parents," Dean guessed. "Make Deals with women, save they guys they like, collect ten years later with their newborns when they're six months old."

"Wow, you've got my _whole_ plan figured out!" Azazel exclaimed, and he actually seemed _impressed_. "Though, I never thought of making Deals with just women… Actually, I'll probably have better luck that way. Thanks for the idea, Deano."

 _Shit._

"Is your brother… Sam, isn't that what you told, ha, Gramps and Grandma here? Is he the best of my kids?"

"Sam is _not yours_ ," Dean snarled. "He was _never_ yours!"

"But you said he could see the future," Azazel retorted gleefully. "He _must_ be the best of my special children. Oh, man," he laughed, shaking his head, "I can tell I've got _so much_ to look forward to…" He grinned.

"What is your end game?" Dean demanded. "Why do all of this? Why go to that convent? What are you going to do with my brother?"

Azazel laughed even louder. "You think I'm gonna tell you, with those angels sittin' on your shoulder?" He spread his arms. "No, I'm gonna cover my tracks _real_ good."

"Cover all you want, 'cause I'm gong to fucking _end_ you," Dean told him darkly.

Azazel raised his eyebrows. "Now _that_ I'd like to see," he said.

Dean glared at the demon. "It might not be today," he told him firmly, resolutely, "but you look into my eyes, you sonuvabitch, because I'm the one who kills you."

Azazel stared at Dean for a long moment, face void of emotions. Then he grinned. "So, you're gonna save everybody with this little trip of yours, is that right? Is that it?" He took a step back and set the Colt down on the table. "Well, I'll tell you one person that you're not gonna save." He picked up a knife from the table and plunged it into his, _Samuel's_ chest.

"No!" Dean shouted.

 _"NO!"_ It was Deanna. Azazel whipped around and strode after her as she scurried into the kitchen. Dean started struggling against the hold Azazel still had on him and broke free right as Deanna stopped screaming. He grabbed the Colt and ran into the kitchen.

He was too late.

Deanna was dead.

Azazel was gone.

And Dean knew _exactly_ where he was going to go.

Dean ran for his stolen car and set out, finding Mary just as she lurched forward and sealed her Deal, sealed Sam's fate, sealed her death. He grabbed the Colt and jumped out, aiming to kill, but then Azazel was streaming away from Samuel's mouth, and John was coming back to life in Mary's arms, and Samuel was dead, and — and — and —

"Dean."

It was Castiel.

"Cas…?" Dean stared at him.

Castiel reached forward, placed his hand on Dean's shoulder, and —

Dean gasped, sitting up on his bed. His eyes landed on the angel, and anger coursed through him. "There was never any way to change what happened, was there?" he queried, scrambling to stand and get in Castiel's face. "I knew what was supposed to happen, and it still — it still happened!"

"Destiny can't be changed, Dean," Castiel said quietly. "All roads lead to the same destination."

"And that's supposed to make me _feel_ better, is that it?"

Castiel tilted his head to one side. "It was important that you knew all that we know."

Dean gaped. "But I told Azazel who I was," he said, "and he didn't tell me or my dad when he kidnapped Sam. He just said 'some Hunter'!"

"Your memory of that encounter was slightly altered," Castiel said. "My superiors determined that it was in your best interest to act without knowing who the Hunter was that Azazel encountered in his journey to meeting your parents."

Dean stared at Castiel disbelievingly. "Cas," he said, "that is _wrong_ , don't you see that? Messing with my mind for your own purposes? That's — _fuck_ ," he swore, throwing his hands in the air, "you angels are messed up."

Castiel frowned and shifted uncomfortably. "We still don't know _why_ Azazel did all that he did to your brother," he said, completely bypassing Dean's last words, "but we fear that he is headed down a very dark path."

"Which is why I'm trying to find him," Dean snapped. "Wasn't Azazel's endgame to have him lead an army?"

Castiel hesitated. "There are those in Heaven who feel that it's bigger than that."

Dean passed a hand through his hair in frustration. "You mean other angels?"

"No." Castiel stepped forward. "I fear your brother is of great importance to events to come, or else I and my brothers and sisters would not have been asked to try and get Sam to stop drinking the demon's blood right after he started."

"Right," Dean sighed, hands flopping uselessly through the air. "Well, I'm gonna find him, Cas. I swear it."

Castiel nodded and vanished.

Dean sank onto his bed, and gave into his grief over the possible future that would never be because the past, it seemed, was set in stone.

None of this was fair.


	14. Fourteen: The Rebel

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Fourteen: The Rebel**

 **This past week brought parent teacher conferences for the first term at my school. Man, that took a lot out of me! I'm loving my job, though. It's fun, it's challenging, and I wouldn't change a thing.**

 **This chapter marks the 100th post in my Demon Blood AU. I have a total of 100 story chapters and one-shots right here, right now. You guys, there is still such a long, _long_ way to go before this 'verse meets its end. If it ever ends. There is so much I could still write about, but this is a pretty awesome achievement! Especially when you consider the two year gap between chapter postings back during "Demon's Year". Anyway...**

 **In chapter thirteen of my last story "Demon's Year", Danielle's friend Roxy Parker was kidnapped and tortured by the Hunter we all hate: Gordon Walker. Near the end of that chapter, Roxy had something happen, saw someone who was dead while she was in a coma. This is the other side of that part of the story.**

* * *

Danielle was gone.

Uriel glared at Jared, who was happily doing a rock-climbing excursion with a group of teenage boys. "There can be no mistaking it this time," he rumbled. "The girl has somehow managed to escape her Heaven without setting off the alarms."

Castiel nodded. "I agree — Uriel? What are you doing?"

Uriel manifested himself and strode forward, grabbing Jared by the shoulder, spinning him around, and slamming him against the nearest rock wall. "Where is she?" he demanded.

Jared gasped and struggled against the angel's hold. "What the hell? Let go of me!" he returned angrily.

"Where is Danielle?" Uriel snarled in the soul's face.

"I don't know!" Jared shouted back at him. "Here, like she should be?"

Uriel released his grip and Jared and gestured around the Heaven they were currently in. "Do you see her?" he asked.

"Sometimes she goes off for her own memory recall," Jared said with a perplexed expression. "It's normal."

"She is not here!" Uriel insisted. "Where has she gone?"

"Uriel," Castiel called out, making himself visible to Jared, "I do not think he knows."

"He must know something," Uriel snapped. "I know every other angel believes the two of you do as you're told, but I am _certain_ that you both are _conspiring_ against the will of Heaven when we are not here."

"Check your paranoia," Jared retorted, "it's showing hardcore."

Uriel's face twisted, and Jared was sent flying back against the wall by the angel's will alone with a grunt of pain. "Uriel!" Castiel yelled, striding forward and forcing the other angel to turn around. "This is _not_ how we treat the souls in our charge."

"It's what he deserves for lying!"

"No," Castiel said firmly. "Jared is not the one who has done wrong here. We will find Danielle, but not by acting as though we are no better than the souls who are sent to perdition!"

Uriel glared at Castiel, but released his hold on Jared, who sagged a couple inches, breathing hard. "What do you suppose we do to find her?" he asked icily.

"We report her as missing," Castiel told the other angel. "We send out search parties. We _find_ Danielle."

Uriel's jaw clenched. "Fine," he grit out and took flight without another word.

"We will find Danielle," Castiel told Jared, "but I cannot guarantee the condition she'll return in."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jared asked at once. "What are you going to do to her?"

Castiel had no good answers for the soul. He left without replying, ignoring Jared's yells for him to come back and explain himself.

There was nothing he could say to bring comfort. It was better to say nothing at all.

* * *

For two and a half days, the angels searched for Danielle.

For two and a half days, they were unsuccessful in their search.

"It's as though she's vanished from our borders entirely!" Balthazar complained.

Borders…

 _"I think it may be possible to take Ash's work and apply it to traveling beyond the borders," Danielle says thoughtfully as Castiel spies on her and Jared._

Could it be…?

"What if she's not within our borders?" Castiel asked.

Balthazar and Uriel turned to look at him. "What?" Uriel said. "That's impossible."

"Is it?" Castiel pressed. "We have searched everywhere within the spaces of Heaven. Can you tell me that travel beyond our borders is not possible without a shadow of a doubt?"

Uriel opened his mouth and paused.

"It could be worth looking into," Balthazar said quietly. "Just because it has never happened before does not make it impossible for a soul to theoretically do the same as any angel or Reaper."

There was a moment of silence as the three angels considered the idea.

"I will go report to Sariah," Balthazar finally said. "You two should waste no time and go see if this theory of Castiel's is correct."

"I agree," Castiel said. "Come, Uriel."

The angels split up and began their search anew.

Castiel had not been beyond the borders of Heaven for quite some time. Nothing had ever broken into Heaven, so patrols in this area were few and far between. Occasionally, the souls of coma patients and prisoners of war wandered this particular space, but never with enough awareness to try and enter Heaven. What was Danielle hoping to accomplish by setting foot out here?

The two angels searched the nothingness outside the borders of Heaven for many hours. Sariah called out to let them know that she was going to send out additional patrols to scan the beyond, and Castiel hoped they might help. This nothingness was far vaster than he had first anticipated.

Suddenly, Castiel heard two female voices. One of them sounded like it might be Danielle. Gesturing wordlessly, Uriel immediately followed Castiel as he sought out the owners of the voices.

"… kill Sam? And how are you in Heaven?"

"Heaven's bitch."

"We have found her," Uriel exclaimed loudly, and the nothingness around them shook with the force of his true voice.

"They found me."

"Dani?"

The angels quickly closed in.

"You've gotta go," Danielle spoke in a fast, urgent tone of voice. "Live, Roxy. Take care of yourself and Taryn and just… live, okay?"

"But I don't —!"

Castiel caught his first glimpse of the two females. One was clearly Danielle in a white gown, and the other was a young woman with dark skin and a bright shock of red hair. He watched as Danielle raised her right hand, yelled the word "LIVE!" and then smacked her open palm against the other female's chest. The darker girl gasped and stumbled back a step toward what Castiel knew was a thinner layer that separated this place from the realm of the living.

Danielle turned toward the angels, hands held up in supplication. "Castiel," she spoke quickly with true fear in her voice, "Uriel, wait, please, I can explain —!"

But it seemed that Uriel wanted no explanation. He spun himself into a form that Danielle could see and struck out forcefully, sinking his hand into Danielle's abdomen to tear at the very core of her soul, and sending out a shockwave that ruffled Castiel's feathers. He watched the other female cry out from the shockwave and then topple through the thin part of the barrier as Danielle screamed, trying to curl herself around Uriel's hand.

Castiel did not know why he froze long enough for Uriel to do what he did, but as he watched Danielle scream and _writhe_ , something ached inside him. And then a tear slipped from the soul's left eye and the something inside him _snapped_.

He had no words to describe what this thing was inside of him, nor why it reacted as it did to Danielle's punishment at Uriel's hand. He just knew with absolute certainty that she did not deserve what the angel was doing to her. This was not justice. This was not the will of God. This was a wrathful move from an angry angel, and it had to stop.

Now.

 _Danielle has been found,_ he quickly sent out to Sariah before he strode forward. "That is _enough_ , Uriel," he insisted, grabbing the other angel's arm and forcing him to withdraw it from Danielle's center. The young soul collapsed, crying and shaking as she curled over her legs and pressed her face to the ground. "Our orders were to find and retrieve Danielle," he forced himself to continue, "not to punish without authorization."

"But look at what she has done!" Uriel roared back. "She is not _troublesome_ , Castiel, she is a _threat_ , pure and simple!"

"How is she a threat?" Castiel returned incredulously. "She spoke to a soul whose body is in a coma. Chances are that soul won't even remember a thing about the conversation the two of them had." He noticed that Danielle stilled slightly at his words. "Are you assuming that she will try to escape back to Earth? That is not possible without a demon's Deal, the will of an angel, or the dark magic of a _very_ powerful witch. It is _highly_ unlikely that Danielle has access to any of those things."

"Souls are not to leave their place in Heaven," Uriel said. "It is the way with no exceptions."

"Keeping us locked up?" Danielle suddenly snapped, still breathing harshly. "I knew it. We _are_ prisoners within paradise." She raised her head and glared at Uriel. "This is not what Heaven should be," she said, arms curled around her torso as she sat up. "True paradise is being able to be with all of your loved ones, not just memories of them or a single soul mate."

"That is enough, maggot," Uriel snarled, hand raising as though he was determined to plunge it into her again, and Castiel reacted without thinking, grabbing the other angel and restraining him.

"Stand down," he commanded tightly, thankful to finally feel the approach of Sariah, Balthazar, and others from their garrison. "Danielle will be dealt with, but with justice, not wrath."

Uriel gave Castiel a hard, inscrutable look, but relented.

"It seems we have a little rebel on our hands," Sariah commented when she arrived. "Did you see what she was doing?"

"She was speaking to a soul in a coma," Castiel answered at once. "I believe she called the soul 'Roxy'."

"A friend of yours, perhaps?" Sariah suggested. Danielle glared at the angel and kept her silence. "I see. It would seem that our patrols of your Heaven have been too spread out." Danielle snorted. "We shall have to remedy that."

Sariah turned to one of the other angels, Ishmael. "Please escort the soul to the prison. She needs to learn a lesson for her impudent behavior."

Ishmael nodded and strode forward, pulling Danielle to her feet. The young soul rose without protest, face devoid of emotion. When her eyes met Castiel's, he realized that she was terrified.

When had he become so adept at understanding this human?

Danielle stiffened slightly when Ishmael pulled her close, and then the two were gone. "I expect a full report within the next day," Sariah informed both Castiel and Uriel. "You are dismissed."

It was relieving to return home, but Castiel wondered — worried — whether Danielle was truly facing justice. He flew over Jared's Heaven and realized the soul inside was still calling out for answers.

Castiel felt regret that he had none to give.


	15. Fifteen: Poltergeist

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Fifteen: Poltergeist**

 **Oh, boy. Don't hate me. There's some stuff in this chapter that I pulled from seasons _eight and nine_ of the show. We're talkin' our first taste of knowledge regarding the Knights of Hell (I really hope you're up-to-date on the show!). I won't be getting too deep into it, but I felt that it was necessary. I'll get more into why in the next chapter.**

* * *

 _"You scream so sweetly for me," Alistair whispers to Dean as Sam looks on. "C'mon, gimme another."_

 _Dean's screams echo, rattle around in Sam's brain_ as he woke up and stumbled to the bathroom to retch in the toilet.

Would the nightmares ever get any easier?

* * *

Ruby headed out a few days after Sam's breakdown on the side of the road to see if she could get in touch with any of her former contacts and figure out what, if anything, Lilith was currently up to. It wasn't like there was a thing Sam or Ruby could do to stop her directly, but if there was a way to cripple her role as a leader, then Sam would do it.

After a week, he got a short text message from Ruby:

 _No leads yet. Keep you posted._

With nothing else to do, Sam parked himself in a college town in Mississippi and got a job as a bar-back (and if he swayed the manager's opinion with his Jedi crap, no one needed to know but him, right?). The summer semester was close to wrapping up, which meant pretty busy weekends and slow weeknights.

His third night there, a Monday night, something weird happened.

"How do you make it look so effortless?"

Sam glanced up from moving a series of boxes at the bartender, and shot him a grin. "What, the hair?" he asked. "It's just naturally awesome."

Greg laughed. "Those boxes, asshole," he replied. "You look like you're pretty strong, but you're gettin' the things moved faster than anyone else who's ever done the job." He crossed his arms and leaned against the nearest wall. "What's your secret?"

"Telekinesis," Sam joked (well, yeah, actually, but who would believe it, anyway?). "I dunno, man, I'm just good at it."

The top box suddenly slid forward and tumbled to the floor right as something not human tingled at the edges of Sam's consciousness. "Damn it!" Greg cursed, moving forward and turning the box (of pretzels, so not a big deal) right-side up and ripping it open. "Not again."

"Again?" Sam asked. Greg sat back and sighed.

"So, this bar is almost as old as the university," he began, rubbing his forehead. "Boss decided to remodel the place a couple years ago, and ever since then…" He shook his head. "Weird things keep happening. Things falling that were secure, opening up the store to find the chairs in weird arrangements, but the security alarms haven't been set off…" He trailed off and pursed his lips for a moment. "You know that empty shelf by the pool tables?"

"Yeah."

"It used to have a bunch of things on it, like collectible glass tumblers and shit, and one day it all started flying off the shelves, one item at a time like someone was grabbing each thing and chucking it across the room!"

"Wow," Sam said, reaching out with his senses to see if he could feel anything that was possibly supernatural, like the something that had tingled when the box of pretzels had been knocked down. There hadn't been anything obvious before, but now that he knew something was going on, he could feel something slightly off about the place.

"We contacted one of those paranormal groups that has a reality TV show last summer, and they documented a few of the things we've been seeing, but not any of the major ones like the chairs moving around. So like, either this… whatever it is — _ghost_ just wasn't feeling all that active that night, or —"

"Or it knew they were there to film it and it didn't want to play ball," Sam finished, mind racing through the possibilities. "Did this paranormal group look up the history of the bar?"

"Why, you a ghost hunting junkie or something?"

"Or something," Sam said, silently commanding Greg to tell him the truth.

"Well, yeah, they did." Greg appeared uneasy now, his emotions accommodating, but wary. "They actually said they weren't comfortable sharing the information on their show, so we made up this bullshit scene where they said their research turned up nothing that would explain the activity, but it turns out that there was a satanic cult that owned the property before it became a bar."

Sam felt his eyebrows rise, and quickly schooled his features.

"These… Devil worshippers," Greg continued, "they pledged their allegiance to something called 'The Knights of Hell', demons supposedly hand-picked by _Lucifer_ to make all kinds of Hell on earth. There was a mass murder of the worshippers in 1863, and the original building almost burned to the ground."

Sam swallowed hard. "Did they give you the research they did?"

Greg shook his head. "Boss-man begged them to get rid of everything they'd found. That kind of destruction, and the number of lives lost… It was a little too much for him, y'know?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed distractedly. He'd never heard of something like this before. Knights of Hell?

After his shift ended that evening, Sam began researching the history of the bar and the Knights, coffee and protein bars the only thing fueling his researching frenzy. There wasn't much to be found online, but somewhere in hour eight (or maybe it was hour nine?) of his research, he ran across a name: Abbadon.

"I've seen that name before," Sam muttered to himself, rising and heading over to his duffel bag. After rummaging around for a few seconds, he pulled out John's journal.

Sam hadn't looked at the thing very much for the last few months, but he had read it cover-to-cover many times, and that name… It was in there somewhere, he was sure of it.

 _December 4, 1991_

 _Picked up a demon, a protégé who had bones with someone called Abbadon._

And under that was a series of numbers ending in the letter 'T'.

Sam leaned back in his seat and frowned. He had basically glazed over this entry dozens of times because it was so short, and Dean had said he thought that he and Sam had been at Bobby's at that point. Sam had figured he was right because it lined up with his memory of when Bobby gave Sam the amulet that he chose to gift to Dean instead of John. He reached up, almost unconsciously, to tug at the amulet where it now hung around his neck.

 _That's not the only series of numbers in here._ The thought startled Sam out of brooding over Dean, and he began flipping back and forth through John's journal, faster and faster as he discovered dozens of number listings under entries, usually short, but not always.

Within minutes, he had written several numbers sequences out on a spare bit of paper, rising as he took them all in.

"It's a filing system," he breathed with wide eyes and caffeine-shaky hands.

John's storage locker in New York had filing cabinets. Sam had thought about sorting through everything their dad had in there, but life had been so hectic, first with that cursed rabbit's foot, and then everything else, that he hadn't ever gone back.

He couldn't help but feel that these Knights of Hell and Abbadon were worth looking into, but there was still the matter of the activity going on in the bar. Since he hadn't once felt a spirit on the premises, there was a very good chance that it was a poltergeist.

A little digging online allowed Sam to watch the episode the ghost hunting show had put out for the public to see following their "investigation" at the bar. They managed to catch some interesting EMF readings, a cash register dinging and opening on its own with the nearest person standing three feet away, and a couple of boxes shifting when no one was around, but that was it.

Sam watched the whole thing and pondered over what he knew about poltergeists. What stood out to him the most was the bar's bloodied history from 1863. And from what the episode said, the activity hadn't started until the basement, once closed up, was reopened as extra storage. That further pointed to the massacre in 1863 being the reason that all of this was happening.

Then Sam thought back to when he and Dean had gone back to their home in Lawrence and met Missouri Moseley. What had she said about their home?

 _"Real evil came to you. It walked this house. That kind of evil leaves wounds. And sometimes, wounds get infected."_

Based on what little information he had found, Sam could see these Knights of Hell being the kind of evil that could leave a wound open to infection. The ghost hunting show had set up cameras in the basement, but the cameras kept failing for different reasons, even the ones the team had been carrying on their persons.

Sam hadn't been down in the basement as of yet, but with this visual evidence on top of everything else he had learned, he knew that was exactly where he needed to go.

Now to find a strong purification ritual. There was the one he had used a year ago to get rid of a poltergeist at Missouri's request, but he couldn't help but wonder if maybe he might need something stronger.

His hands had picked up his phone and all but selected Bobby's number to call before Sam came to his senses. He had cut ties with Bobby, he couldn't just call him out of the blue like this, never mind that he had access to the best research and contacts.

Was there anyone safe to ask for help?

After some deliberation, Sam decided to just go with what he already had and hope for the best.

But first things first: he needed to go down in the basement.

* * *

"Hey, can I get a moment of your time?" Dean asked the bartender at a college bar in Oxford, Mississippi. "I'm lookin' for someone, he was here for about a month last year in August." He held up a photo Bobby had snapped a few weeks before Dean had gone to Hell.

"Sam?" the guy said.

"Yeah, yeah, that's his name," Dean quickly responded, moving closer. "Was he here?"

"He was," the bartender confirmed, "worked here as a bar-back until our usual guy came back for the fall semester up at the university."

 _Thank God,_ Dean thought silently. "I really need to know more about his time here," Dean said, "it's important."

The guy looked a little uncertain, and Dean sighed. "Did he tell you not to talk to anyone who came here asking questions about him?"

The guy nodded. "What's your name?" Dean asked him.

"Greg."

"Greg, my name is Dean. I'm Sam's brother. When he was here last year, he thought I was dead."

This workaround was Dean's only possibility of getting past Sam's Jedi shit. If this didn't work —

Greg's eyes cleared, and he called for one of his coworkers to take over behind the bar while he talked with Dean. "What d'ya wanna know?" he asked when they settled down in a quiet back room.

"Just — everything," Dean said with a shrug. "How was he, did anything weird happen, was there a girl hanging around him, that sorta thing."

"Well, there wasn't a girl that I ever saw," Greg began thoughtfully, "but he seemed like a good guy. Eager to help, always got the heavy-lifting in the back taken care of twice as fast as anyone I've ever had work here, got along with the college students… Uh, anything weird?" He swallowed hard and looked away. "I don't know if you'll believe anything I have to say about that."

"Dude," Dean said with raised eyebrows, "I practically raised Sam. There ain't a damn thing my brother's been involved with that I don't know about. Well, apart from the last year, that is."

Greg eyed him for a long moment, and then he began to tell Dean what happened.

* * *

"Dude, did you even sleep last night?" Greg asked when he saw Sam the next afternoon.

"Yeah," Sam lied (he got maybe two hours before nightmares chased the ability to sleep away). "Listen, tell me what I can go get out of the extra storage for you."

"Uh, there's really not —"

"Actually, you know what," Sam interrupted, "I'm just going to go down there and look around, okay?"

It wasn't a question or request.

Greg's eyes went a little dull as he nodded in agreement, and off Sam went. It probably wasn't one of the nicer things Sam had done, but he needed to figure out what was going on in the basement before he came back with his supplies to perform the purification ritual, or do whatever needed to be done to stop the paranormal activity in this place.

Sam had brought an EMF detector with him, but as soon as the lights flickered on in the basement, he knew he wasn't going to need it.

The basement _reeked_ of evil, so much so that Sam thought he might choke on it. He wondered how humans without his special gifts could stand to be in this space, though a distant part of his mind was quick to remind him that just a few short years ago he himself hadn't been this sensitive.

A large box came flying out of nowhere and crashed into Sam from behind, sending him to his hands and knees as the wind was knocked out of him. "Not — playing fair," he gasped out as he struggled to regain his footing and ability to breathe.

Of course, why would a poltergeist even want to play fair? Sam recalled the one at his childhood home choking him with the cord from a lamp. He had barely given the other one last summer a chance to do anything to him, but he had needed to be certain about this one.

Well, now he was. This was definitely a poltergeist. A very nasty one, and now that it knew that Sam was more than aware of it, its intent felt more malicious than when Sam had first entered the basement.

The ritual needed to happen ASAP.

"Sam?" Greg cautiously opened the door. "I thought I heard —"

The spare bar stools on the other side of the room shot up into the air and hurtled straight toward Greg. Sam forced back his panic and reached out, dipping into his reserves and channeling it to the chairs, using their momentum to swing them in an arch that ended in the wall next to the one containing the door. The stools smashed apart from the force of the blow. Sam dashed forward, grabbing Greg and pulling him out of the room with him as he forced the door to shut behind them. "Go!" he shouted at Greg, and they both ran up the stairs and out the back door, stumbling into the back alley.

"What the fuck —?" Greg's eyes were wide and his chest heaved for air as he stared at Sam. "Sam, what's going on?"

"Poltergeist," Sam replied, still feeling breathless and a little dizzy. "Nasty SOB, just been playin' with you the last couple years." He swallowed hard. "Think I pissed it off into a rage."

"Wait, you mean like the movie?" Greg said, face pale in the afternoon light. "Is the bar gonna get sucked into an alternate dimension?"

Sam huffed out a small laugh. "Not that dramatic, no," he said, shaking his head. "I just need to get some stuff and do a purification ritual. It's not gonna be pretty, though."

Greg eyed Sam for several seconds. "How do you know so much?"

Sam shrugged. "I kinda spent pretty much my whole life traveling the country to put an end to weird things like this," he finally said.

"But that guy your first night… and all that pre-law talk —"

"I said pretty much my whole life," Sam cut him off, "not every last minute of it. Look, Greg, I need you to keep people outta the bar until I get this taken care of."

"How long is that gonna take?" Greg asked.

"Not long," Sam answered, "I've already got the stuff I need in my car." He nodded his head toward the end of the alley. "C'mon."

Greg had about a million questions to ask as he followed Sam to the Impala, and Sam answered them as best he could until he was all set at the front door. "Okay," he said, "I'm gonna lock the door behind me, and you've gotta _promise_ to stay out here until I come back."

Greg nodded. "But what if it like — possesses you or something?"

Sam shrugged. "There's a very good chance that it's going to be too angry with me to try that," he said, holding out a sawed-off. "But just in case, this has rock salt loaded into the shells. If anything seems off about me, use it, okay?"

Greg nodded again. "Stay safe in there, Sam."

"Not likely, but thanks." Sam nodded and headed back into the bar, mentally forcing the lock on the front door to keep the doors shut. He hefted his supplies, mind seeking out the poltergeist.

Game on.

* * *

"So he walks into the bar, and the door locks behind him," Greg said, slumping in his seat. "Like on its own, I didn't have to use the keys at all."

Dean nodded encouragingly. "Than what?"

"It was really quiet for a couple minutes," Greg told Dean, "and then I see chairs moving, glasses flying off the shelves — God, it was like all hell broke loose in there!" He threw his arms up with an astounded look on his face. "We'd seen some weird shit since this place was renovated, but this…" He shook his head. "I ain't _never_ seen the likes of that day before or since.

"Suddenly," he continued in a low voice, "there's this dull glow comin' outta the walls, and this weird wailing, growling sound started up — dude, I thought my eardrums were gonna burst — and then there was this… tidal wave, I guess, of energy with a bright flash of light, damn near knocked me off my feet, and then —" Greg shook his head in bewilderment. "Nothing. Silent as can be."

"Damn," Dean couldn't help but comment.

"Damn is right!" Greg exclaimed. "So I'm standing outside the bar with a curious crowd gathering up behind me while holding a freakin' _shotgun_ , and finally, _finally_ , Sam comes stumbling up to the doors with a gash on his forehead and looking just… totally beat up, and he flicks his hand at the door, which _unlocks on its own_." Greg raised his hands a little, almost speechless. "I just… I couldn't… like, how did that even happen?"

"And then?" Dean asked, trying to keep the man on track.

Greg snorted. "Sam steps forward, fucking _trips_ on nothing, lands on his knees and says our 'pest problems' are over." Greg shook his head yet again, looking away. "I wanted to call an ambulance, but he said not to, so I didn't." He leaned forward. "Your brother is probably the most incredible person I've ever met," he admitted quietly.

"Yeah," Dean replied, mind churning over everything Greg had told him. "He is that."

* * *

"Pest problem?" Greg burst out as the small crowd behind him murmured in confusion. "Sam, that was — that was _dangerous!_ What if you'd died in there?"

 _I'd be fine with that._

"I wasn't gonna die," Sam said, hefting himself back up to his feet and snatching back the shotgun he'd lent to the bartender. "That wasn't my first poltergeist, Greg. I was fine in there."

"Dude, you're injured is what you are!"

Sam chuckled and lightly touched the cut on his forehead. "I've had worse," he said, willing the small crowd to walk away. "We uh, we should probably clean up," he added, jerking his thumb at the mess behind him.

"Yeah," Greg said. "Are you sure you're okay? I can call an ambulance."

"Don't worry about it," Sam dismissed. "I'm okay, I promise."

And that was that, pretty much. They cleaned up the bar, and Sam stayed another three weeks until the regular bar-back returned from his time visiting family.

After that, with no real word from Ruby as to when she'd return and four months gone since Dean's death, Sam ordered Greg to keep quiet about what he had seen and then headed off to New York. It was time to check out his dad's storage unit and see what he could find on this demon, this _Knight of Hell_ called Abbadon.


	16. Sixteen: Chasing a Lead

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Sixteen: Chasing a Lead**

 **So, Abbadon has been mentioned along with the Knights of Hell. Now we're going to get into _why_ I wanted to include this knowledge from season 8, but we're _also_ getting some stuff from season 9, namely, the First Blade and meeting the Hunter named Tara. Parts of Sam's meeting with her are pulled from 9.11 "First Born", but we will NOT be meeting Cain anytime soon. You'll see why before the chapter ends.**

* * *

Sam hadn't meant to spend a week completely cataloging his father's lock-up. It was just that John's system of organizing was…

Crazy.

There was really no other way to describe it.

Ruby showed up about three days into his reorganization with no solid intel on Lilith and lots of frustration over how little she knew, but since she couldn't come into the lock-up and Sam refused to compromise the safety of the space, she took to bringing Sam food and flinging insults at him from the far side of the Devil's Trap.

"Why did you decide to come here?" Ruby finally asked on day six.

"I was uh, working at this bar in Mississippi and discovered it had a poltergeist," Sam answered as he matched up index cards with the lock boxes containing cursed objects. "Barman said activity started when the root cellar was opened up as additional deep storage, and that a team of televised ghost hunters found out the building had belonged to some Devil worshippers back during the Civil War. And get this," he added, poking his head around the corner so he could see Ruby, "they specifically worshiped something called the Knights of Hell. Every hear of them?"

Ruby's eyebrows shot up. "They're to demons what John Wayne was to Dean," she answered, sounding awed. "They were _legends_ , hand-picked by Lucifer, and their leader was Cain himself."

Sam frowned and moved closer. "Do you think Lucifer is real?"

"I'm certain of it," Ruby answered, "same as I'm certain angels exist."

"You think angels are real?"

Ruby shrugged. "Everything seems to have some kind of balance in this world," she said. "Good and evil, right and wrong, the light and the darkness, creation and destruction… I exist, obviously, so why can't the exact opposite of what I am exist, too?" She frowned and tilted her head. "D'you still pray, Sam?"

Sam looked down at the index cards in his hands. "Not so much, lately," he admitted. "Just… too much bad stuff happening."

Ruby gave a sympathetic nod. "So… how did learning about the Knights of Hell lead you here?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Well," he began, "I found a name in my research that looked familiar, Abbadon. I realized it was in my dad's journal, and the entry said that he found a protégé of Abbadon's who had beef along with a series of numbers ending in the letter T. I realized there were other numbers in the journal, wrote them all on one paper, and thought it had to be a filing system. So, after I cleaned up that poltergeist and finished working at that bar, I came up here."

"And what did that filing number lead to?"

"A huge fucking mess," Sam grinned. "Well, that and a few more details of that particular Hunt." He set aside the index cards and snapped up the file to show Ruby. "My dad was working with a Hunter named Tara when he nabbed that demon. There isn't much here, but the demon did mention something called the First Blade before my dad exorcized it."

Ruby stared at the file and the picture included of a woman, presumably Tara. "This is _way_ above my pay grade," she admitted. "I suppose we could find this Tara chick. It could be this _blade_ could kill Lilith, especially with a name like that."

"You think so?" Sam asked, feeling hope flare in his chest.

"Maybe," Ruby said. "I think it's worth checking into."

A day later, the two left the lock-up and went in search of the Hunter named Tara. For the first time in a while, Sam prayed that this would be the lucky break he needed to do something, _anything_ right.

* * *

"Knights of Hell?" Bobby sounded befuddled over the phone. "I can't say I ever heard of anything by that title."

"That's what the bartender told me," Dean said with a shrug. "He said Sam seemed interested in what he had to say, showed up the next shift looking like he hadn't slept a wink. He got rid of the poltergeist, stayed until the regular bar-back returned, then booked it to New York. Looks like he went to Dad's lock-up."

"You been there to see what he was lookin' for yet?"

"I'm just pulling up right now," Dean answered, looking up at the neon sign for Castle Storage. "You mind trying to find out more about these Knights while I see if I can find what brought Sammy here? I tried lookin' myself, but no dice."

"I'm on it," Bobby promised, and Dean ended the call, heading inside. John's key to the lock-up was attached to the keys to his baby, which meant it was unlikely that Sam was going to be here anytime soon.

This really sucked.

Then he went in and had to stop. "Whoa."

Sam's neat-freak touch could be seen and felt _everywhere._ Whatever Sam had been looking for, it had involved a major overhaul of John's system (or lack thereof) in which he had clearly reorganized the contents of the lock-up. Sam's trail had him staying nearby for a solid week. That was plenty of Sam-time to fix up the entire contents of the room.

At first, it seemed that Dean wasn't going to have any luck, but then he found a piece of paper with Sam's scrawl, listing over a dozen sets of numbers. The one at the top ended with the letter T. With a frown, Dean looked down the list and saw two words written at the bottom: filing system.

There were filing cabinets in here, Dean realized, looking up and over at them. Maybe he could find what Sam was after by looking through them.

And find it he did.

"I got more for ya," he said as soon as Bobby answered his phone. "Add in something called the First Blade."

"The what?" Bobby sounded confused.

"First Blade," Dean repeated. "Dad and this Hunter named Tara caught a demon when I was twelve, I think at the beginning of December when Sam and I were with you for a couple weeks. The demon said he was a protégé of someone called Abbadon, and mentioned this _blade_ before Dad exorcised him." He frowned. "I think this Abbadon could be a Knight of Hell, it's the only possible connection that could've led Sam here." He scrubbed at his face. "Any ideas what's goin' on here?"

"Not yet," Bobby admitted, "but I'll see what I can dig up. Take care of yourself, son."

"You, too." Dean spent the night at the nearby motel, and then he was off, following Sam's trail in hopes of figuring out what was going on.

* * *

"Okay, I think this is the place," Sam said, pulling up to the pawn shop that Tara apparently owned.

"I'll just wait here," Ruby said, shifting slightly. "I know you could make her be okay with me in there, but I'd just rather not deal with it."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "I'll be back soon." He slid out of the Impala and made his way inside the store.

A middle-aged woman stood behind the counter. "Can I help you?" she asked, all pleasantness over curiosity and suspicion.

"I'm hoping you can," Sam said. "My name is Sam Winchester. I believe you knew my father, John?"

Tara stared at Sam before nodding slowly. "Yeah, I knew him," she said. "He said you were a shrimp of a kid."

Sam chuckled. "Puberty changed that," he said wryly. "Anyway, I found a file about a job you worked with my dad several years ago, a demon who said something about a knife called —"

"The First Blade," Tara finished. "Why you askin' about it?"

"I'm uh, I'm after a powerful demon," Sam admitted. "I haven't been able to find anything that could kill it yet, but I ran across a Hunt involving a group of people who worshipped the Knights of Hell, and from what I understand, this blade could work against the demon I'm after."

"How powerful of a demon we talkin' here?" Tara asked.

"Lilith, the first demon."

Tara whistled. "Wow, you Winchesters sure know how to aim high on the food chain," she said, shaking her head.

"I know it," Sam grinned. "So, d'you know anything else about this blade?"

Tara reached under the counter and pulled out a file. "The demon said the archangels used a weapon that could kill the Knights of Hell," she said to Sam, opening it to reveal her detailed notes. "We'd never heard of anything like the Knights of Hell or a First Blade. Your dad thought he was lying, trying to save himself. We took him out, and we had a lovely weekend together."

Sam grimaced a little at that. He knew his father hadn't been a monk after Mary died, but it was never fun to hear of him being with other women, let alone _meet_ them.

"Then we went our separate ways," Tara continued with a shrug. "But I could never let the blade go. Something like that could really give a Hunter an edge, you know? I looked all over the world — destroyed my knee and my life. And all I found?" Turning to the wall behind her, Tara unlocked a wall safe and took out a tray full of spell ingredients. "A location spell for the blade that I could never finish." She sighed. "Couldn't find one ingredient — essence of Kraken."

"Wow," Sam said. "That's — that's really rare."

"Don't I know it," Tara chuckled darkly. She set the tray on the countertop. "Tell you what, Sam," she said after looking him over with a flurry of emotions, "if you can ever find the last ingredient, you're welcome to bring it here and help me finish finding that blade."

Sam nodded. "I might have a few avenues I can check, see if any of them pan out," he told Tara. "Thanks for being willing to talk to me about all this, Tara."

"No problem," Tara said. "Hey, where's your brother, Dean?"

Sam swallowed hard and looked away. "He and Dad are both dead," he answered quietly. "S'just me, now."

Tara's face slipped from the kind smile to sadness. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "You'll stay in touch?"

Sam nodded. The two Hunters exchanged numbers, and then he left without another word.

"So?" Ruby prompted when Sam slid back into the driver's seat of the Impala.

"Unless you've got a lead on essence of Kraken," Sam sighed, "this lead is a bust."

"Essence of…?" Ruby shook her head. "That's incredibly rare."

"Yeah, I know." Sam told Ruby everything Tara had told him.

"I might have some old contacts I can try," Ruby said thoughtfully. "You have any ideas?"

"Maybe Rufus," Sam said, "but I don't know that I wanna get him involved. He'd be just one more person I'd have to force to be silent."

"If nothing else pans out, he might be our best bet," Ruby replied quietly. "It'll take me a week, maybe two, before I'll know if I have any leads that could get us closer to this blade."

"Sounds good."

Ruby headed off the next day, and Sam began going through the few contacts he had outside of Bobby and Rufus. Most had never heard of essence of Kraken, two had no idea where to get it, and three told Sam to shove it.

Whatever.

Finally, Sam admitted defeat and went to go see Rufus. He let the older man chew him out for about two minutes for shutting out his family the way he had before insisting on getting down to business.

"Essence of Kraken," Rufus mused, staring at Sam. "That's an interesting request. Can I ask why you're wantin' some?"

"It's for a complicated tracking spell," Sam said, silently making Rufus accept that answer as enough information.

"Hmmm… I _might_ be able to get some, but it's gonna take time, and I don't rightly know how much. There's a pretty good chance I won't know for sure until beginning of next year."

It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing.

As much as it pained Sam, he forced Rufus to keep silent about his visit and made him know that he was only to call Sam if he had a lead on the rare ingredient; no other contact was allowed.

It was best for everyone that way.

* * *

As soon as Dean said who he was, Tara had a shotgun in her hands. "Your brother said you were dead," she said tersely. "Tell me what the hell's going on right now!"

"Okay!" Dean said quickly, holding his hands up placatingly. "I _was_ dead, made a horrible Deal and went to Hell, but an angel pulled my fat out of the fryer a couple weeks ago. I _swear_ it's all me, do any test you like, I'll come up clean, I promise."

Tara glared at Dean before lowering the shotgun and throwing a splash of holy water in his face, followed by tossing a silver knife at him. Dean quickly made a small cut on his arm. "Any more proof needed?" he asked.

Tara hesitated, but then her shoulders relaxed. "What're you doin' here? And where's Sam?"

"I'm tryin' to find him," Dean told her. "I came back and tried to track him down, but he's gone completely off grid, so I thought if I could trace his steps while I was dead, I could figure out what he's been doin' and where he might be right now."

"Hmm," Tara pursed out, "that explains why I couldn't reach him last week."

"You tried to call him?" Dean asked, hope flaring.

"Yeah, he uh, he came here askin' about a job I did with your dad a few years back."

"Something about the First Blade, right?"

Tara nodded. "I told him all I knew. I tried tracking the blade down, but the best I was able to do was a spell to locate it. Thing is, I don't have one of the ingredients: essence of Kraken."

"That's a thing?"

Tara chuckled. "Rare, but yes." She shook her head. "Sam said he thought maybe the blade could take out this demon he was after, said he'd try to see if he could track down that last ingredient." She shrugged. "He alerted me to potential leads and dead-ends, but I hadn't heard from him for about four months, so I tried callin' last week, but the number's been disconnected."

Dean's shoulders slumped. "I was really hoping for better news," he admitted.

"Sorry I ain't got anything better for ya," Tara sighed. "If he ever drops by again, I'll call, yeah?"

"That'd be great," Dean replied, jotting down his phone number on a piece of paper. "How uh, how did Sam look when you saw him?"

"Tired," Tara said bluntly. "Desperate. A little hopeful. He seemed determined to keep on truckin'."

"Sounds like my Sammy," Dean chuckled. "Thanks."

 _Where are you, little brother?_

* * *

 _"You know what I'm going to ask, Dean."_

 _"An' you... you know what I'm gonna say."_

 _There's a moment of silence as Sam watches the two stare at each other._

 _"No," Dean finishes, voice wavering from exhaustion, but strong in conviction._

 _Alistair clucks his tongue. "I'm sure you'll change your mind soon enough," he says, revealing his latest tool for torture. Sam begs for Dean to be shown mercy as his brother writhes, screams, chokes on blood —_

"Sam, wake up!"

Ruby was almost clocked in the skull as Sam bolted out of bed, nerves flayed and breathing erratic. He stared around the room, trying to get his bearings as Ruby slowly rose and approached him. "Sam," she said, "what's going on?"

"Nightmare," Sam answered shortly. "About Dean."

"About when he died?"

No, but Sam nodded, anyway.

"Is there — d'you want a spell to sleep better, or maybe some pills —?"

"No," Sam said, shaking his head and shoving his hair out of his face. "I..." He sighed and blinked hazily around him. At a moment's thought, a bottle of beer was freed from its cooler and slid into Sam's hand. He drank it quickly, uncomfortably aware of the way Ruby was watching him, of the way her emotions shifted as she watched him. "Please don't," he whispered.

"Don't what?" Ruby asked quietly. "Ask you to tell me the gory details of what happened in an attempt to somehow make you feel better so you sleep better?" She snorted. "I'm not a shrink, Sam." She sighed and sat down on the bed. "I just... I _worry_ about you. I don't need sleep to function, but you do, and you're not getting enough."

"I'm fine," Sam muttered. Ruby raised her eyebrows.

"Bullshit."

Sam blinked and looked up at the demon.

"You're not fine," Ruby told him. "You've spent the last four months jumping from one idea to the next in hopes that something will work and bring Dean back." A beat. "Or kill Lilith." Another beat. "You need to rest, Sam. I'm not saying take sleeping pills every night, but maybe... at least try it once a week, I _know_ you'll function better when you're not plagued by nightmares."

Sam looked down at his beer. "Okay," he whispered. "I'll try."


	17. Seventeen: Revelations

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Seventeen: Revelations**

 **I hope my American readers had a good Thanksgiving!**

 **Have you missed Castiel's story? Well, we're returning to him and his interactions with Danielle once more. I pulled a little bit of information regarding our favorite angel from something the angel Naomi says in season 9 about Castiel. I also have an appearance from an angel we met in season 9, the guard of Heaven's prison, Thaddeus. I do not like that angel, lemme tell ya!**

* * *

Danielle was contained in Heaven's prison for a full year while Sariah's superiors debated over what to do with her. Castiel tried to be content with resuming his normal duties, but he found his thoughts straying to the curious soul too often. When he dared to ask what had become of her, Sariah had simply said that Danielle was in prison and her superiors were in talks about what the next step should be for the troublesome soul. Castiel tried to be understanding of this, tried to put Danielle out of his mind, but he couldn't do it. He thought he noticed the members of his garrison whispering to each other, and worried that he had done something to cause them to give him sidelong glances, eyes sharp and calculating.

During the year that Danielle was locked away, Castiel flew over Jared's Heaven a few times. Every time, Jared was screaming for answers, for someone to tell him something, _anything,_ about his beloved.

Castiel never answered.

"Are you up to the task of returning Danielle to her Heaven?" Sariah asked Castiel when the (strangely long) year had passed.

"Yes, I am," Castiel answered, making sure to keep his eagerness to see Danielle again hidden away. "Shall I retrieve her now?"

Sariah nodded. "Look for Thaddeus. He will release the soul to you."

Castiel didn't like Thaddeus. He delighted in torturing the prisoners inside. While he had never done more than guard the entrance during those ten years he served as punishment for not following orders, Castiel had heard enough screaming at Thaddeus' hands to worry about the shape Danielle would be in upon retrieval. He hoped the stubborn soul had endured her time well enough.

"Castiel!" Thaddeus called out when he arrived at the prison entrance. "I am pleased to see you again, brother!"

Castiel nodded. "As am I," he said quietly, hoping the other angel wouldn't notice the lack of enthusiasm in his voice. "Do you have Danielle ready for me to transport?"

Thaddeus smiled. "Indeed I do. Wait here, I will fetch her for you."

Castiel stood ready in a form that Danielle could see.

However, he didn't like what he saw moments later.

Danielle's soul was as strong as ever, shone at its core as brightly as it did the day it arrived in Heaven, but it was clear she had taken a beating during her time sequestered away in the prison. There were bruises all over her face and neck, and her arms were wrapped tightly around her torso; a closer inspection told Castiel that two ribs were cracked while her abdomen was riddled with additional bruising. It was all superficial damage, things that would have no long-term effects on the soul.

What bothered him the most, however, was the look in Danielle's eyes.

They were completely blank.

"You know, Castiel, we've never had a soul in the prison before!" Thaddeus informed Castiel, one hand tight on Danielle's closest shoulder. Danielle didn't reacted when he shook her slightly. "It's been an interesting year. I will miss this little spitfire!"

With that, he released Danielle and strode back into the boundaries of the prison.

Castiel hesitated before moving closer. "Danielle?"

There was a sudden spark of life in Danielle's eyes as they flicked up to meet Castiel's. She stared at him for a long moment before she said a single sentence:

"That was not justice."

Castiel stared at her, and knew he couldn't argue.

"You're right," he said, trying to convey his sorrow into the words the way humans were so good at doing. "This was not what I expected to happen at all, not for someone who did the work of Heaven on Earth."

Danielle's jaw clenched. "The work of Heaven on Earth," she said, and her tone of voice was dark and ugly. She stepped closer to Castiel. "Do you even _know_ what I did?"

Castiel frowned. "The work of God," he said.

Danielle stared at him for another long moment. "They never told you, did they?" she breathed. "Your superiors say jump, and you just say 'how high?' without even thinking about the — the how _or_ the why."

"I don't understand," Castiel told Danielle.

"No, I don't expect that you do," Danielle snorted, looking away at last.

"I know you did Heaven's work at great personal cost," Castiel supplied.

Danielle let out another snort that turned into laughter. It wasn't a cheerful sound. "Do you even _care_ what I did or _why_ I did it?"

"Should I?"

"After spying on me on and off for the last fifty years, I would've thought you might," Danielle answered, and how did she know that?

"You never said anything."

"You weren't ready to hear the whole truth. Still aren't," Danielle added. "I don't see how that's possible when you —" She broke off and looked away.

Castiel narrowed his eyes. "It is time to return you to Jared," he said at last, and offered his hand.

Danielle looked him over for several moments before stepping forward and placing her hand in his.

"Let's go," she said.

And with a flap of Castiel's great wings, they left the prison behind.

* * *

The next forty years passed with little fanfare. Danielle never revealed how she managed to escape beyond the boundaries of Heaven, but she also didn't try to leave her own Heaven again. The guard rotations were tightened up considerably with little time between each shift, but Danielle and Jared never did anything even remotely suspicious. Castiel didn't spy on the two souls, either.

It seemed an equilibrium of understanding had been achieved at last.

"My superiors feel that we can ease off slightly on the frequency of the shifts," Sariah informed the garrison in the ninety-second year after Danielle's initial entrance into Heaven. "I would agree. Our troublesome little soul has learned her lesson."

Castiel wasn't sure he believed that Danielle had changed the error of her ways completely after a single year away from her life partner, but he kept his silence on the matter. He knew everyone wanted the time spent watching Danielle to decrease, including Danielle and Jared.

His first shift after the decrease in guard shifts was done with Balthazar. When they arrived, Danielle and Jared were having a picnic in a manner oddly reminiscent of the very first shift the two angels had served together.

"Do you know what I find odd?" Danielle was saying to Jared with the two angels arrived.

"What?"

"God gave humans free will, right?" Danielle spread her arms out. "We can choose who we want to be, what we want to do with our lives, make choices and learn from them as we face the consequences, good _or_ bad, but angels don't get this same freedom. Think about it, Jared. Their entire existence is based around following orders. The vast majority of them don't know how to think for themselves!"

"Why would God create the angels to be that way?"

"I don't know," Danielle admitted, twisting her fingers in her lap. "What I do know is the ones who _do_ think for themselves? They're dangerous."

"Like that douchebag Thaddeus."

Danielle nodded. She had healed well from her year in Heaven's prison, but Castiel had observed that she still carried a faint shadow of that time in her eyes. "Lucky for us, he's happy to stay in his little niche, torturing the angels in the prison. But there are others who suffered serious consequences."

"Such as?"

"One angel named Anna chose to fall and become human."

"Angels can do that?"

"Apparently," Danielle said with a shrug. "She uh, she did it because she didn't agree with the way the angels treat us _lowly_ souls. She thought we were so much more, and she wanted to experience that."

Castiel could feel Balthazar turning to look at him, the question he didn't want to answer in his eyes: was Danielle telling the truth? He gave a small nod in answer.

"Anyway," Danielle continued, "I'm pretty sure many angels are capable of acting of their own free will, but they're either scared to or have been brainwashed so they don't remember that they ever tried to make their own choices." She turned to look at the two angels. "Like, for example, the two angels watching us right now and their habit of spying on us after shifts."

"Lemme guess, Castiel and Balthazar?" Jared laughed. "What are the odds that they'd be here for this conversation?"

Balthazar wasted no time in making his form visible. "You knew I was spying on you?" he asked.

Castiel quickly made his form visible, too. "Wait, you spied on these souls, as well?"

The two angels stared at each other in shock.

"Cat's outta the bag!" Danielle crowed, leaping to her feet. "Now, the question is this: who is too scared to make their own choices, and who has been brainwashed so they don't remember all the times they've ever dared to go their own way?"

"I've never been brainwashed," Balthazar said at once.

"Nor have I," said Castiel.

"Sadly, only one of you is correct," Danielle replied while shaking her head. "I bet you guys can figure it out if you try." She and Jared rose. "We're going for a walk. See ya around, o winged ones." Clasping hands, they two souls strode away, leaving their picnic to fade away into nothing.

* * *

"When did you start spying on them?"

"Shortly after your stint guarding the prison. You?"

"Around the same time."

Balthazar chuckled and shook his head. "How are we to know who has been a coward and who has been brainwashed?"

"How can we be certain that Danielle is correct about that at all?" Castiel countered. "It stands to reason that she has always been able to sense even the slightest hint of angelic grace, but how can she know that all she says is true?"

"She has yet to be wrong about pretty much everything else," Balthazar pointed out.

The two angels had sequestered themselves away from the others in their garrison after their shift finished so they could talk freely. "But where is she getting all of her information from?" Castiel asked. "No angels are supposed to talk to her. _We_ shouldn't have spoken with her."

"Maybe that Ash fellow she mentioned a few times," Balthazar murmured. "From what I gathered from my spy sessions, this other soul was skilled at breaking into all kinds of stores of knowledge."

"And Danielle has an innate skill to read and understand our language," Castiel added, seeing where Balthazar was heading. "She must have taught him our language so he could learn all there is to know within Heaven."

Balthazar was silent for a moment. "You're not planning on sharing this with anyone, are you?"

Castiel shook his head. "Are you?"

"No, definitely not. I think…" He hesitated, then barreled on to say, "I think we should keep an eye on each other, see if we can figure out which of us has had their mind tampered with."

"I agree," Castiel said. "I am glad to know that I can trust you, Balthazar."

"And I you," Balthazar replied. The two parted ways shortly thereafter to resume their other duties, both still thinking on Danielle's words.

Who had been manipulated into forgetting their attempts at free will?


	18. Eighteen: Campbell

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Eighteen: Campbell**

 **I've had this chapter ready for a few days now, but I've hesitated in posting it because I wasn't completely certain I wanted to head in the direction this chapter will push things toward. I've planned this subplot for years, saw where the parts of it fit in with things I wrote in previous stories, but the fact that it ends up involving a character's potential for coming back to life... I just wasn't sure I should really pursue it, after all. Many of you have enjoyed the various characters I've created for this AU, but a recent voice has spoken out against the one that I seriously worked the hardest to make a fully-rounded character who would make a terrible choice in the name of faith in God. This new subplot would make obvious certain things I left ambiguous in previous stories regarding Danielle, but it's something I saw happening clear back when I was writing "Demon Virus". I don't want to make it seem like I care more about her than I do the Winchesters or their canon friends and family. They have more screen-time than my OC's; always have, and always will. Please believe me on this, no matter the role Danielle has played in Castiel's story thus far; not every part of Castiel's story will include her. The show has found many ways to bring back loved ones from the dead, and this was a potential way of coming back that I envisioned long before the first mentions of Purgatory in season 6, long before Rowena, long before Amara, all of it. I already established this particular idea in an earlier chapter, but I could have easily changed it or ignored it. I'm not going to.  
**

 **I am posting this chapter because I decided the story it will tell is worth it. There are some amazing conversations and interactions that will come out of what I am going to set up in this chapter.**

 **Sam knows that his mother was a Hunter, knows that Hunting was the family business. He knows, thanks to Ruby, that many of the Campbell's were killed after Mary's death. We know, thanks to season 6, that not all of them are gone. I'm taking advantage of that knowledge to push this subplot forward. I haven't decided if the Campbell's will take a larger role beyond this chapter in the current story, but their existence is being established, all the same.**

* * *

Ruby's leads panned out, and as August passed into September, Sam found himself turning back to regular Hunting to pass the time. He still had nightmares aplenty, and he sometimes got so overworked that he needed alcohol to get any real sleep, but Ruby supported him and revealed herself more and more to be a suitable Hunting partner.

Well, maybe not at the _moment_ , however.

"What's taking so long?" Sam shouted at the demon before shooting at the ghost trying to take him out yet again.

"I'm sorry, maybe _you're_ the one who should've been lighting this fucker up!" Ruby yelled back.

"What, fire" — he shot the ghost _again_ — "isn't your forte? What kinda demon-witch _are_ you?"

"The kind that's gonna kick your ass if you keep sassin' me!"

"You started it!"

 _"Sam!"_ Ruby said exasperatedly. "How do you and Dean get _anything_ done?" There was a clicking sound. "Got it!"

Seconds later, the spirit burned up into nothing.

Sam snorted and brushed his hair out of his face. "As Dean would likely say, _'with style and class'._ "

Ruby chuckled. "A quip for everything?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, that was my brother, all the way."

Using his powers to heap the dirt back onto the grave once the fire had burned itself out, Sam and Ruby left the cemetery in a melancholy, but good mood.

* * *

At the end of September _(Dean's been dead for five months)_ , a new idea occurred to Sam. "You said that Azazel had a bunch of Hunters on my mom's side of the family taken out because of their wealth of knowledge about the Colt," he said abruptly to Ruby at their latest diner in Wisconsin.

Ruby frowned around a bite of fries. "Yeah…"

"Well, what if they had other knowledge, something that could help me bring Dean back?"

Ruby considered as she swallowed her food. "How would we go about figuring that out?"

Sam worried his bottom lip as he mulled it over. "Do you know if any of the Campbell's are still alive?"

"Some cousins, two or three times removed, I think," Ruby answered with a shrug. "But what makes you think any of them would talk to you?"

Sam smiled at the demon. "It's worth a try," he said in reply. "I've got nothing else to lose at this point."

He could feel Ruby's displeasure at the idea that there was nothing else for him, but ignored it. There was no way at this point to kill Lilith. The only other thing that really mattered, more than finding a way to kill Lilith, was having his brother back.

* * *

As it turned out, the remaining Campbell's were cagey, secretive, and really, _really_ hard to track down. It took Sam a week to find any viable leads, and another three days before he managed to track down a man named Christian Campbell, a third cousin. Getting the man to stay still long enough for a talk was pretty damn hard since Sam didn't want to risk using his abilities, but eventually the two men found themselves facing each other in a field outside of Charlotte, Michigan. Ruby made herself scarce so she wouldn't "scare those trigger-happy, paranoid Hunters". Sam had to admit, sensing the distrust oozing from Christian's mind, that it had been the right call. No need to mess up what might be his only chance to find something, _anything_ that could save Dean.

"You say you're related," Christian finally spoke up, not-so-casually placing his hands on his hips where a gun was clearly holstered. Sam kept his stance neutral.

"I'm the grandson of Samuel and Deanna Campbell," he replied. "Their daughter Mary was my mom."

Christian narrowed his eyes. "They're all dead," he said. "What proof you got?"

Sam carefully extracted the birth certificates, marriage licenses, and other paperwork he had put together to prove who he was from his laptop bag at his feet. He held out the folder for Christian to take. The man eyed Sam for a long moment before striding forward and snapping it out of Sam's hand. He immediately began looking through it, squinting up at Sam once or twice before closing the folder. "Looks legit," he finally admitted. "What business you got with the Campbell's all these years later?"

"Knowledge," Sam said. "I know the Campbell family has been Hunting for a long time, and I'm hoping to find some information that will help me."

"Help you how?"

Sam swallowed. "An innocent man was dragged to Hell. I need to know if there's a way to save him, bring him back topside, before he becomes a demon."

Christian frowned at Sam. "Lotsa innocents get dragged into the Pit after makin' Deals with Crossroads Demons," he said. "Did this man do the same?"

Sam looked down. "To save my own life, yes."

Christian gazed at Sam curiously. "How's this man related to you?"

Sam forced himself to hold Christian's gaze. "He's my brother."

Christian raised his eyebrows, but said nothing for several seconds. Finally, he huffed out a loud breath. "There might be somethin'," he said, backing up a couple steps. "I'll take a look, ask around, the works. It'll take me a couple days."

"That's fine," Sam said quickly even though part of him wanted to rage _my brother has been in Hell for five months, I need him back, why can't you let me in so I can figure this out_ but he knew that would get him nowhere. "You have my number. I'll stay close by if that's fine."

Christian nodded after a moment. They said awkward farewells and carefully made their way back to their separate cars, parked on opposite ends of the field. Sam headed back to the small town of Charlotte and checked into the first motel he spotted.

"Any luck?" Ruby asked an hour later when she appeared with a bag of Chinese takeout.

"Maybe," Sam sighed. "Paranoid and distrustful doesn't even begin to _describe_ that family, but the guy I spoke to promised to call me if he found anything useful."

"So we're hanging around for a couple days?"

Sam nodded, accepting the food Ruby handed him with a soft "thanks" and setting it by his laptop.

"What about witches?" he asked sometime later, food half-eaten and cold. "What kind of juice would it take for a witch to raise the dead in a non-zombie way?"

"A pretty damn powerful one," Ruby replied from the nearest bed, lifting the remote to turn down the volume on the show she was watching on the TV. "Really, you need a damn _master_ in necromancy, which would easily be one who's been around at _least_ a thousand years."

"You wouldn't happen to know of any, would you?" Sam glanced at Ruby, who scoffed.

"The coven I belonged to is long-gone," she said. "I have no way of knowing who is in charge of the Grand Coven these days, and I doubt they'd be excited to chat up a demon to help out a Hunter."

"Sorry I asked," Sam groused good-naturedly.

Ruby stuck her tongue out at Sam and increased the volume on her TV show again.

* * *

Forty-six hours later, Christian called Sam.

"I'm sorry, I looked into everything we got, but I couldn't find anything definite," the man said, actually sounding apologetic. "There are a handful of resurrection spells out there, but the firepower needed to use them is outside what any of us are capable of, and I doubt you'd be able to find a witch strong enough or so much as willin' to do your bidding. Add to that, the fact that your brother made a Deal…" He trailed off and then sighed. "It complicates things."

"Complicates them how?" Sam asked.

"A soul that's been promised to Hell, well," Christian whistled, "rulebook we've got says there's no bringin' back a soul that made a contract with a demon."

Sam closed his eyes. "Is there nothing I can try at all?"

Christian didn't say anything for several seconds. "There's a witch you could try an' track down," he finally said. "Name's Aneira. Legend has it that she's old, like over a millennia. Vain as can be, sucks out the life-force of pretty young girls to keep her perfect appearance up, but powerful. _Real_ powerful. We've never been able to pin her down, and word is the psychic she most recently tethered herself to was killed a little over a year ago, so she might be too weak unless she's found a replacement."

"Tethered?" asked Sam. "What d'you mean by that?"

"It's old magic," Christian answered, "real old. Some witches have familiars to ground their sanity to, their powers, but Aneira?" He chuckled darkly. "She likes to find natural-gifted psychics and use their gift as a link to a supernatural 'well', if you will, to draw out power beyond what she's already capable of. She extends the psychic's life for as long as she can until they're burned out or go mad, then breaks the link and goes on the hunt for someone new to 'bond' with, if you can call it that." He sounded a little disgusted. "Still, even with her last grounding rod dead, she'd be quite a force to be reckoned with. 'S the best I got to offer, Sam."

Sam took a deep, steadying breath. "It's better than nothing," he said. "Thank you, Christian."

"You're welcome," Christian replied. "Take care, Sam. Call if there's anything else we could possibly help you with."

"You'd do that?"

"Yeah," Christian answered. "We might not really know each other, but you _are_ family."

Family.

 _Dean is my family._

"Thank you," Sam said again before ending the call.

 _Aneira..._ _Such an old, strange name._


	19. Nineteen: Anna

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Nineteen: Anna**

 **The chapter title is probably self-explanatory. Some dialogue is taken from 4.09 "I Know What You Did Last Summer", as well as 4.10 "Heaven and Hell".**

 **Anyway, it's been awhile! I feel as though I've been in a deep funk with school since returning from Christmas Break. I have a few students who have been bugging each other the entire school year, and despite my best efforts to encourage them to work things out on their own rather than drag me into every little tiff, they let things fester. It blew up in everyone's faces this past week, and it was AWFUL. I'm not excited for school to resume tomorrow because of the issues that sprang up, many of which remind me of the toxic friendships I had when I was that age. I finally drew a line in the sand last week of the things I am done trying to help the students fix because it's spilling into the classroom in toxic ways. This means writing up students for bad choices they have been warned not to make. I didn't like doing it, but it had to be done. It sucked. A lot.**

 **Well, now that I've unburdened all of that, here's the next chapter!**

* * *

Sam's trail after going to visit Tara seemed to return to Hunting. Dean tracked many jobs his brother worked, Jo joining him for a few days, then Ellen. There were a few Seals broken during that time, but Bobby found no signs of Dean's brother at any of them. Adding to that, the grizzled Hunter wasn't able to find out anything else about the Knights of Hell or the First Blade that they didn't already know. A whole month had gone by without Dean finding his brother.

And the cherry on top? Castiel was nowhere to be seen, either.

It felt like Dean's life was turning into nothing but a series of dead-end trails and abandoned roads —

Out of nowhere, a figure stumbled onto the empty highway.

Right in front of Dean.

Slamming on the brakes, Dean turned the wheel sharply and almost went off the road in his haste to avoid hitting the person. No sooner had the Impala screeched to a halt when the person was standing at Dean's window, rapping on it frantically in the evening light.

"Please!" she cried out. "You have to help me!" Dean went to roll down the window to speak to her better when her eyes went wide, staring over at the other side of the road where she had come from.

Dean turned to see what was scaring the woman, and saw three people standing at the edge of the road.

Their eyes were black.

Shit.

"Get in," Dean called to the young woman, pointing to the back door. She nodded and slid inside, door slamming right as Dean put the pedal to the metal and zoomed away, the demons chasing him for a few hundred feet before dropping back. Meanwhile, the woman was gasping, clearly on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Okay," Dean said, "I need you to listen to my voice. Take a deep breath…" He guided the young woman through several deep breaths, in and out, until it was clear that she was calming down. "Now, can you tell me your name?"

"It's Anna," the woman answered. "Anna Milton."

"It's nice to meet you, Anna," Dean said to her, taking in the pale skin, bright eyes, red hair, and… white hospital outfit. "My name is Dean Winchester."

Anna's eyes widened. "Wait," she said. "Dean, as in — _the_ Dean?"

"Uh —" Dean floundered. "What?"

"The one the angels speak of," Anna supplied. "The Righteous Man, chosen by God."

Dean couldn't form a coherent thought for several seconds. "Is — is that why demons were after you?" he finally managed. "Because you hear the angels talking?"

Anna nodded. "The angels communicate on their own frequency that no one else can hear," she said.

"So, Angel Radio," Dean said. Anna chuckled.

"I suppose." She leaned forward. "You _are_ the Dean Winchester the angels have talked about, right?"

"Yeah," Dean answered reluctantly. "That would be me, I guess."

"They say you might be the one who can save them — save everyone."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "That's a… tall order," he finally settled on. "So those demons were after you because you've got your angel ears on?"

"Yes, that's one way of putting it." Anna sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face. "I could — I could _see_ their true faces, it's how I knew I had to leave the medical center."

"Medical center?"

"I uh, checked myself in for psychiatric care when the voices first started," Anna admitted.

"I can't say I blame you," Dean said. "Where were you headed when we crossed paths so dramatically?"

Anna giggled. "A chapel nearby," she told Dean. "I was hoping that holy ground would keep me safe."

"Yeah, that _used_ to be the gold standard," Dean sighed. "Not so much, anymore. Too many demons that are too damn high on the food chain runnin' around these days." He shook his head as he headed out of town. "But lucky for you, we're just a few hours out from a place that demons can't get into."

"Where is it?"

"It's a lock-up, actually, but demon-proofed to the nails. All we gotta do is get there in one piece."

"Okay," Anna said. "I… I trust you."

"I hope I do, too," Dean muttered to himself, then louder, "So uh, when did you first hear the angels talking?"

"November second last year," Anna told him.

No way was Dean going to enjoy this story.

"First words I heard, clear as a bell — 'Sam Winchester has chosen to defy God's command'."

Dean gripped the steering wheel tightly. "Did they mean…?"

"The demon blood?" Anna asked quietly. "Yes, I believe so. I heard a lot in the following days about further attempts to make Sam stop, followed by attempts to find Sam. It had mostly tapered off by the end of the month, but then I heard angels asking for volunteers to dive into Hell to rescue the Righteous Man."

"Me," Dean clarified.

"That is your role," Anna answered. "Many claim it quite often. Anyway…" She trailed off, and Dean saw in the rearview mirror how anxious her face had become. "It got really quiet for a while after that. I was ready to check out, but then on March nineteenth…"

"That's the day I got outta Hell," Dean said.

Anna nodded. "I heard it again: 'Dean Winchester has been saved'. And then it was just so… non-stop after that, I've been so overwhelmed most of the time."

"What about right now?"

"They're actually pretty quiet at the moment," Anna admitted. "It's nice."

Dean took a deep breath as he tried to take it all in. "I've got a friend who might be able to figure out how you can hear the angels and see demons clearly," he said. "I'll give him a call, okay?"

Anna nodded at once, so Dean grabbed his phone and called Bobby.

"What's up, son?"

"I've got a girl in the backseat who can hear the angels sing," Dean announced.

"Dean," Bobby clearly grimaced over the phone, "I thought I told you that I have _no_ interest in your sex life."

"Ha ha, not that kind of singin'," Dean replied, rolling his eyes and ignoring Anna's snort of laughter in the backseat. "I mean Angel Radio — this girl can hear the angels talking upstairs. She already knows who I am, _and_ she can see the true faces of demons!"

"That's — wow," Bobby settled on after a few seconds. "How long's this been goin' on?"

"Since around the time Sam started getting' his demon high on," Dean told him. "We're goin' to my dad's lock-up, closest and safest place I could think of that no demons can get into."

"Good plan," Bobby said. "I'll shelve the Sam-hunt for a few, see what I can dig up for this girl'a yours."

"Thanks, Bobby." Dean shut his cell phone, set it aside, debated for a few seconds, and then decided to go for it.

"Anna, d'you think you could tell me everything the angels had to say about Sam?"

* * *

Later, after hearing it all, Dean was silent. It was a lot to take in. Defiant, insolent, Ruby almost never leaving his side, Sam had refused to follow orders that apparently came from God himself!

Where had his prayerful, God-fearing little brother gone?

"Dean, could I… maybe I could call my family, make sure they're safe?" Anna timidly interrupted the inner monologue.

Dean took a deep breath. "I don't think that's a good idea. The demons will either be watching them, or…"

"Or they're dead." Anna's voice was flat.

"I'm sorry," Dean said quietly as he pulled the Impala into the parking lot of Castle Storage.

"Why is this happening to me?"

"I don't know," Dean answered honestly. "Let's get you inside."

Once inside the lock-up, Anna seemed to relax. She wandered around the space, lightly touching Dean's childhood sawed-off, Sam's soccer trophy. Now that she wasn't terrified for her life, Dean could see better the sweet, kind, lovely person she most likely was.

"I want to know more about the Sam that you know," Anna said abruptly. "I've told you what the angels have said, but I know that's only one part of him."

Dean cleared his throat. "Sammy… he's very stubborn, the angels have at least that much right about him." He chuckled. "He used to butt heads with our dad over pretty much everything, from safety to what we were Hunting to soccer, homework, moving too often… Honestly, he loved our dad, but while I did everything I could to be like the man, Sam was naturally _just_ like him." He shook his head wryly. "Kid never even realized it."

Anna approached Dean quietly. "You're looking for him," she guessed.

"Yeah," Dean sighed, "but he's untraceable. Haven't got a clue where he could be right now."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Anna said. She looked around. "So what exactly makes this place safer than holy ground?"

"It's the uh, Devil's Traps on the floors and ceilings," Dean told her as he gestured to the closest one. "Ain't a demon strong enough to cross one without gettin' stuck. You'll be safe here until we can figure out how you're tuned into Angel Radio."

Anna nodded, then stiffened. "Something's coming," she whispered. Dean had enough experience with Sam's ability to sense demons to know she wasn't lying.

He prepared himself.

But what came through the door to the lockup was the last thing Dean expected.

It was Castiel, accompanied by another angel with dark skin and fury in his black eyes. "Cas," Dean gasped out. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Uriel," Castiel answered.

"You here to help?"

"We're here for Anna," Uriel answered.

Dean stared for a moment. "Here for her like…" He was so confused. "Here for her?"

"Stop talking," Uriel snapped, glaring daggers at Anna as she backed away into the back room where the curse boxes were located. "Give her to us."

"Are — are you gonna help her?"

"No," Castiel answered somberly. "She has to die."

What.

The.

Fuck.

"First you nutballs screw with my memories, then you drop me back in time to make sure Azazel gets to my mom, and now you wanna kill some innocent girl?" Dean could not believe this. He had never believed in angels to begin with, but the reality that faced him… He had no words to describe his rage at how different they were from the celestial beings Sam had believed in as a child.

"She is no innocent," Uriel said darkly.

"She doesn't even _know_ how she's wiretapping your angel chats!" Dean insisted.

"It matters not," Uriel insisted. "And don't worry, I'll kill her gentle."

"You're some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?" Dean snarled.

"As a matter of fact," Castiel said, eyes not quite meeting Dean's, "we are. And?"

Dean's jaw worked as he tried to work through his anger over this situation. "You're not taking her," he finally settled on.

Uriel's face twisted and his arm abruptly swung out, catching Dean across the jaw and sending him stumbling into the nearest shelves. He started to straighten up when a bright, white light filled the room, completely engulfing the two angels. Moments later, it faded.

The angels were gone.

"What the hell?" Dean breathed. "Anna?" He turned and ran into the back room, stumbling to a halt at what he saw.

On the first open bit of wall space was a strange set of sigils Dean had never seen before. Anna stood beside it, holding a small blade as blood dropped down her hand and off her fingers.

"Are they… are they gone?" Anna asked in barely a whisper of a voice.

Dean nodded dumbly. "Did you kill them?"

Anna shook her head. "I sent them away," she answered, voice a little stronger. "Far away."

"You wanna tell me how?"

"That," Anna said, nodding to the strange sigils, "just popped in my head. I don't know how I did it," she told Dean with wide eyes. "I just _did_ it."

This was bigger than Dean had first thought. "What are you?" he asked.

Anna's eyes watered. "I don't know," she whispered. "Are — are you still going to help me?"

Dean startled. "Are you kidding?" he said. "No way I'm lettin' angels kill you for no reason!"

Anna smiled around her tears. "Thank you," she said, stepping forward and throwing her arms around Dean.

He hugged her back, silently worrying about just what the fuck he'd gotten himself into now.


	20. Twenty: Tangled Webs

**Demon Seals**

 **Chapter Twenty: Tangled Webs**

 **I lost my job.**

 **It was a charter school. I tried. They decided I wasn't a good fit, so they let me go. I've been subbing in various public schools for the past week (thank goodness that was something I was doing before I got hired, so it was easy to get back into), and I've been trying to deal. I never thought I'd fail at a job I worked so hard to train in and get in the first place. I made mistakes, plenty of them. I tried to do better when I screwed up. I guess it just wasn't enough.**

 **Anyway, in chapter twenty-three of "Demon's Year", Bela went to Danielle's sister Elise and performed a** ** **séance** to speak to Danielle about how to go about killing Sam. Here is the other side of that conversation.**

* * *

Castiel wasn't sure what he had walked in on.

Danielle wasn't prone to outbursts of anger without an angel already present, so to hear her yelling like this was confusing.

"Whatever you did to my sister, stop it now."

 _"_ _You can't do a thing to me,"_ a strange voice laughed. _"You're in Heaven!"_

"Dani, calm down," Jared said quietly. "What do you want?" he asked in a louder voice.

 _"_ _Simple,"_ the voice said. _"I want to know how to kill Sam Winchester."_

Castiel watched as Danielle stared blankly before her for a few seconds, and then she threw her head back and started laughing, though it sounded like it wasn't happy at all. "You're not serious," she finally said.

 _"_ _Deadly,"_ the formless voice snapped. _"I've done my research, I know you're the one who killed him and left Dean no other choice but to make a Deal for his life. How did you do it?"_

What was going on? Who was Sam Winchester? And who was this Dean? Castiel shared a confused look with Sariah, who gestured for him to remain silent. It was clear that she wished to let the scene carry out, possibly in hopes of learning something new about the "troublesome soul", as she still liked to call Danielle.

"Why the _fuck_ would I tell you?"

"Dani, calm down —"

"Jared, I love you, but stay out of this."

 _"_ _How on earth did I manage to reach the both of you?"_

"We're Soulmates," Danielle snapped at the unknown voice. "Soulmates share a Heaven. Y-you reach out to one, you'll likely reach both if they're right by each other." Ah, this must be a séance. Castiel had heard of them, but had never witnessed one firsthand. "Now put my sister right and leave," the young soul before him insisted.

 _"_ _Darling, you can't make me, remember?"_ the unknown voice sighed. _"Go on, tell me what I want to know."_

Danielle didn't say anything for a long moment. "Does Sam still have the ability to sense emotions?" she finally asked, running her hands through her hair.

 _"_ _Yes,"_ the unknown voice answered.

"Then you need to train your mind," Danielle said tersely. "Train it against invasion from the mind of another."

 _"_ _How?"_

Castiel and Sariah glanced at each other again. This conversation was becoming stranger with every second that passed.

"Go find a psychic," was Danielle's reply. "Someone legit. Or find a witch who can create a barrier using magic. You have to get up close, give Dean no chance to react."

" _Fine. Any last tips?"_

"Just one," Danielle said, and Castiel could see her face growing dark with anger. "You won't kill Sam."

 _"_ _Of course I will,"_ the voice said derisively. _"He's still human."_

"You misunderstand me," Danielle's entire countenance turned cold. "I don't know why you want to kill Sam, but you cannot kill him because it is _not_ your place."

 _"_ _What does that mean?"_ the voice asked, confused.

"The big plan," Danielle told the woman's voice shortly. "There are some big-ass players on the chess board, and Sam's continued existence is _vital_ to their winning strategy. So go on, take your best shot. I hope you burn in Hell for even _thinking_ of trying."

The woman's voice was silent for a few seconds. _"Killing him is what will_ keep _me from burning in Hell,"_ she finally said.

Danielle laughed. "Made a Deal, did you?" She shook her head. "Too bad. I hope you enjoy being on the rack when your time is up."

"Enough of this," Sariah said, raising a hand and ending the séance with a forceful wave her hand. "How did she get through to you?"

Danielle glared at Sariah. "You really expect me to have _all_ the answers?" she asked incredulously. "You made it clear _years_ ago that your superiors didn't want me to contact anyone, or have anyone contact _me_." She glanced at Castiel. "I don't know how everything works or why this happened," she said. "You'd better figure it out."

"I believe she is telling the truth," Castiel spoke quietly to his leader. Sariah glanced at him before nodding.

"There will be a full investigation of this… incident," she informed Danielle and Jared. "I expect you to cooperate, understood?"

"Of course I do," was Danielle's cynical reply. " _Anything_ for the Host of Heaven."

"Assemble a team," Sariah told Castiel, completely missing the sarcasm in Danielle's voice that was so apparent to Castiel. "I want Uriel, Ishmael, and anyone else you think will help in on this. You will lead the investigation."

Castiel met Danielle's wary gaze briefly. "Of course," he said. "I will begin right away."

"Excellent," Sariah nodded. "Thank you, Castiel."

Castiel met Danielle's eyes one last time before he left to begin his newest assignment. He could clearly see her worry, and found himself pondering the strange conversation he had witnessed.

 _"_ _I know you're the one who killed him and left Dean no other choice but to make a Deal for his life," says the unknown voice through the_ _séance._

 _"_ _Do you even_ know _what I did?" Danielle asks Castiel as she stands outside of Heaven's prison following a year of imprisonment for her actions._

Had Danielle killed a man? And if she did, then how was it that she was in Heaven? How was it that a human killing another human could be the work of Heaven?

 _"What did she do?" Balthazar asks the very first time he sees Danielle._

 _"I do not know," Castiel answers, "only that it was the work of Heaven."_

 _Balthazar frowns at the young soul. "Then why isn't she pleased?" he asks. "Unless she had to take a life…"_

 _"Why would she take a life?" Castiel asks, confused._

 _"It's just…" Balthazar trails off. "I heard rumors of a steady stream of souls coming into Heaven that had been killed on Earth due to unusual impurities."_

 _"Impurities," Castiel echoes. "What sort of impurities?"_

 _"I don't know," Balthazar says. "I suppose I am just… speculating that she was the source of the deaths. Unless she tells Jared what it was that she did, we may never know."_

Was this Sam Winchester one of the souls with the unusual impurities Balthazar had spoken of so long ago?

* * *

"We have reached a conclusion," Castiel reported to Sariah two weeks later. "Ishmael, if you would."

The angel stepped forward. "According to Danielle and Jared, the living soul who contacted them was named Bela Talbot. Uriel was sent to investigate her mind, and he learned that her name is a falsehood to cover up what she did ten years ago, that she did _indeed_ make a Deal with a demon, and that the only way out of her Deal is to kill an accomplished psychic named Sam Winchester. Although she is skilled in contacting spirits on the other side of the veil, she is not a natural-born psychic. We believe that because she is not a true psychic, her ritual confused the wards previously erected around Danielle's Heaven and allowed her to slip through unchecked."

"I see," Sariah said. "What is your recommendation, Castiel?"

"Uriel says that additive wards can be constructed into the current wards, which will prevent this from happening again," Castiel answered. "He would like to work with a team of specialists to see that this is done in a timely manner. I recommend that this team be given access to the current wards so that they can create new warding that will not be in conflict with what is already there."

"I will report this to my superiors," Sariah said, "but I believe that what you ask will be granted without qualm. Thank you, brothers, for your hard work."

The group was dismissed, and Castiel returned to his normal duties. He couldn't stop pondering what he had heard Bela say to Danielle, but he could not bring himself to ask the young soul about it.

Surely there was a logical reason that Danielle's work in the name of Heaven was just and necessary. It just wasn't his place to ask what that reason was.

* * *

"Dean Winchester is dead."

Castiel started and looked up at Danielle, who was staring right back at him. He glanced at Balthazar, who shrugged in confusion.

"Who is Dean Winchester?" Castiel finally asked, making himself visible.

"The guy you angels are supposed to be saving from Hell," Danielle answered. "He was just dragged off, so I expect the word to go out soon that he needs to be rescued."

Balthazar made his form visible. "Why would we save a soul from Hell? Particularly one who must have made a Deal, from your wording?"

"He did," Danielle answered.

"Is he related to the psychic named Sam Winchester?" Castiel asked.

"His older brother," Jared said from where he was sitting next to his wife.

"What was his Deal for?" asked Balthazar. "For his brother?"

Danielle didn't answer, silently twisting the claddagh ring on her left hand.

"Bela Talbot said you killed Sam Winchester," Castiel ventured. "Is that true?"

Jared glared at him as he wrapped an arm around his love. "Are you really ready to have this conversation?"

Castiel paused, but never got a chance to decide. **_My brothers and sisters,_** the voice of Sariah called out, **_please report to the Garden._**

"Maybe that's the announcement about this Dean Winchester," Balthazar said quietly.

Castiel nodded and looked back at Danielle. "We will continue this conversation at a later time," he said. Danielle nodded, and the two angels set off for the Garden.

When they arrived, it was to see Sariah standing with another angel who Castiel didn't know by name. Many angels were murmuring among themselves, wondering what this meeting was for. Castiel and Balthazar exchanged glances as Sariah stepped forward and called for attention.

"My brothers and sisters," she began, "I have asked you to gather here because of a strange happening that occurred on the planet below." She gestured to the angel Castiel didn't know. "I would ask that you listen to all that Zophiel has to say. This may be… difficult to comprehend as possible, but I know what Zophiel has to say is the truth. Please, Zophiel, go ahead."

Zophiel stepped forward nervously. "I am among the angels whose duty it is to observe the happenings on Earth," he began. "As of late, our attentions have been attracted to the North American continent. A powerful demon managed to have a Devil's Gate opened, which unleashed an ancient demon, possibly the first Lucifer created. The demon goes by the name Lilith, and has displayed powers not seen for several millennia."

There were quiet murmurs among Castiel's brothers and sisters at this.

"This demon showed particular interest in having a human named Sam Winchester killed," Zophiel continued, and Castiel froze.

"How can this be?" Balthazar whispered.

"Why would a demon want just _one_ human dead?" called out another angel. "They are creatures of chaos and destruction for _all_ humans!" Sariah stepped forward.

"Sam Winchester is an… _abomination_ ," she sneered. "The powerful demon that released Lilith bled into his mouth when he was but six months old, as well as many others."

"Sam is the last of his generation who is still living," Zophiel added. "That alone made him a threat."

"What happened to the demon who infected him?" asked another of Castiel's sisters.

"Dead," Zophiel answered, "by the hand of Sam's brother, Dean."

 _Dean Winchester is dead_.

"However, that is not the strange happening I came here to report to you," Zophiel continued. "Dean made a Deal with a demon for Sam's life, and was given one Earth year to live. Sam tried to stop the Deal from coming due by killing Lilith, but was unsuccessful." He leaned forward. "What was strange was that Lilith in turn tried to kill Sam, and was _just_ as unsuccessful."

The uproar caused by this statement startled Castiel. Many expressed disbelief, others confusion, still more anger. It took Sariah several minutes to calm the Host of angels.

"Our leaders have asked that we shift our focus from Heaven to Earth," she announced. "It is not known why this abomination is immune to strongest demon we know of, nor why it was created and remains the only one of its generation still alive today. We need answers because it is believed that the demon who created Sam Winchester had a much greater reason for his existence than we know of. If we observe Sam, we may learn what this reason is."

After that, Sariah set about organizing a team that would observe and take notes on Sam Winchester a period of one month on Earth. Castiel was disappointed when he was assigned to that first team. That was ten years of Heaven's time that he had to wait before he could resume that conversation with Danielle.

"I promise to wait until your return to speak with Danielle," Balthazar said just before Castiel left.

"Thank you, brother," Castiel replied.

And with that, he set off for the planet below.


End file.
